The Sins Of The Past
by Hunting Osprey
Summary: No matter how far or fast you run your past misdeeds will always be there to greet you and, for Jazz, the price of absolution could be deadly.
1. Will I see you tonight?

I don't own them. They belong to folks with very expensive lawyers.

**Warning** I was in a very weird and unhappy headspace when this came along and sunk its teeth in, this is not going to be a happy fic people, just so you know.

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Ratchet stopped mid step and sighed deeply as the sound of someone noisily emptying their gas tank drifted down the corridor, spinning on his heel he set off in the direction of the sound idly wondering who the twins had got now with their 'special brew' energon. As he passed the door to the security office, he again stopped mid step at the sounds emanating from within. Distressed, despairing, broken sobbing was not Red Alert's usual response to the results of any of the twin's schemes; seriously concerned that things might have gone further than the twins had planned Ratchet opened the door. Red was half kneeling, half slumped against the back wall of the office clutching the waste bin so hard that the metal was dented under his fingers, shaking uncontrollably his face white with shock, optics dilated to their fullest extent and fixed in horror on the main screen. The logo of some pirate broadcaster spun slowly in the middle of it, a trite metallic tune issued from the speakers, Ratchet gently and slowly knelt down just out of arms length, not wanting to startle the distressed mech. Having provoked no response with this action he risked moving forward slightly, still no response but now Ratchet could hear that Red was uttering a half mumbled litany of words.

"Nononononononono not them, please Primus not them, not that please, please no"

_Scratch the twin's as the source of this_ Ratchet thought carefully examining Red, then very slowly and as non-threateningly as he could Ratchet reached out and laid a hand on Red's arm. Against all of Ratchet's expectations the distressed mech didn't react violently, in fact all that happened is that Red Alert slowly tore his gaze away from the screen and focused on Ratchet. In a voice that sounded lost and very forlorn, he stuttered.

"Too late, far too late, what use am I? I have failed the most basic duty of a security officer and now … they …. He…. Oh Primus he's"

Red's voice drifted of in to unintelligible, hysterical sobbing as he collapsed into Ratchets arms the occasional dry heave making his frame shudder. Ratchet sighed and broadcast over the private com lines a request to Wheeljack and First Aid for them to join him in the security office right this slagging minuet.

_----An hour later----_

"So what you're saying is that Red's finally gone off the deep end?"

Sunstreaker asked when Ratchet had finished explaining to the rest of the Autobots what had happened, and that for Red's own well being the security officer was currently sedated in the repair bay.

"Highly unlikely, I hypothesise that what ever that station was broadcasting must have been responsible for the state Ratchet found him in." Perceptor reasoned, "So I suggest we examine the broadcast and then we can determine the most appropriate course of action."

At the various nods of agreement, Perceptor switched on the main screen and the same tinny electronic music that Ratchet had heard in the security room drifted out of the speakers, followed by a high-pitched nauseating voice announcing.

"Good morning Keitel, and for those of you with us for the first time you are in for a treat! Yes good people life doesn't get better than this, so grab a can of your favourite poison and sit back a enjoy the highlights of the event of the epoch!"

The logo dissolved into a view of a grey, grimy energon stained chamber with a large solid table in the middle, but when the door hissed open and two very familiar offline mechs were hauled in hisses and exclamations of anger filled the room. Silence fell as a third very online mech was dragged in kicking and struggling for all he was worth. Twenty minuets later not a mech in the conference room hadn't needed to loose the contents of his gas tank and a numb horrified helplessness settled firmly over the group.


	2. Cron

_--- Two months earlier ---_

Jazz put his shoulder to the door of his room and pushed it closed, life, he reflected, sucked sometimes. Like right now for instance, he plodded across the tiny room, and collapsed on the recharge bunk. Here he was, stuck visor deep in grim as the least regarded member of a scow cleaning gang in the deepest pit of the roughest dock in the most corrupt and dangerous port in the entire of the most infamous sector of this slagging planet which had fully earned it's nick name of the stab in the back. The whole set up was just not cool, not only was he thousands of light years from earth and any of the friends he could trust to keep his back, the job he was here to do was giving him a galaxy size case of the shivers.

Prime had called him into his office just over three months ago and Jazz had started to worry when Prime had locked the doors and initiate every security protocol going before uttering a word. By the time that briefing had finished, he'd been in full-blown flip out mode, Prowl and Prime had had the devils own job in calming him down enough so they could release all the locks. It wasn't that he disagreed that the thing needed doing, it absolutely had to be done and like last millennium at the latest, and he didn't mind too much that they'd pegged him to go do it, it was just, man, the way it was gonna need to be done. He'd got out of exactly that kind of glitch'n slagging stuff for a reason. Things he hadn't thought of for years were suddenly running round his head, old attitudes and habits that he'd shed with considerable difficulty had rushed up and ambushed him. Then the nightmares had started, thank Primus that he shared quarters with Prowl, or the whole thing would have been blown into the outer solar system. The lack of sleep and a major case of hair trigger nerves had resulted in him landing both the twins in the repair bay as critical cases when they'd tried to jump him as a joke in the corridor outside the common room. It had taken all of Ratchets very considerable skills to keep them alive, Prime had vocally shredded him, in front of almost the whole of a very stunned Ark, and then thrown him into an isolation cell for the month it had taken to finalise the details and set everything up. He gave out a long, deep, disgusted sigh, thinking about this was not going to help him get any recharge and in this game being below peak performance was a sure fire way of getting a one way ticket to the matrix. Rolling out of the bunk he carefully set up the elaborate array of trip wires, sensors and other devices that ensured he felt just safe enough to recharge, that task done he set his internal alarm to wake him in four hours and dropped into a thankfully dreamless recharge.

Four hours later Jazz snapped back on line and off the bunk into a defensive fighting stance in one swift movement automatically sweeping the room with every sense he possessed. The tiny lights of the control board for his protection net glowed green for less than a microsecond as the thin transparent panel they were embedded in registered the lack of pressure from his sleeping form and then went dark. No one had entered his room the security camera was still dead and no micro bugs and been introduced via the air con unit, so far so good. Opening the chest a the bottom of the bunk Jazz lifted out the meagre belongings his current personality would have, a few treasured family holograms, a small low grade wax kit, an even smaller and lower quality first aid kit, his certifications and academic credentials, small mementoes of planets and friends long left behind. Carefully prising up the false floor of the chest Jazz reached in and took out the small but powerful hand gun that had been his personal weapon on all types of missions since he got his field stripes, packs of explosives were gently removed some hidden in subspace pockets others in carefully hidden spaces in his legs and arms. A much more complete first aid kit was distributed so that nothing rattled as he walked, extra ammunition for both pistol and rifle went into another subspace pocket, closing up the chest and repacking the contents Jazz mentally ran over the night's schedule. With this side of the planet facing a way from the sun, the atmosphere became too turbulent for ship to descend and the docks closed down. A quick trip down a maintenance shaft to the small nest he'd made in the depths of the city during his first days here to check through the info his data feed taps had collected and to catch up on what his informers had to tell. Then it would be back up to the loading levels to tag some crates and rig others to blow, ducking in and out of unattended freighters to do small but significant amounts of damage to core system, planting a few new taps and moving old ones and above all trying not to be caught at any of it.

_--- Later the same night---_

A ring of disreputable bars and eating pits garishly illuminated surrounded the ramshackle living quarters for dockworkers, Jazz drifted like a breath of wind through the bitterly cold dark and deserted streets of the outer rim of this belt. The trick, he mused pausing at a large intersection was not to move in total silence, that got peoples notice faster than a dinobot charge. You moved within the sounds of your surroundings, blending in becoming invisible, shimming up a refuse pipe to the roof he timed his movement to the thumps and clanks of the pump at the base of the pipe. He backed up on the roof, waited and took of at a dead run leaping over the intersection just as a blast of hot air from the smelters rushed across the rooftops carrying the roar of machinery with it, perfectly masking the sound of him hitting the roof of the building opposite. Moving inward to the more sheltered and still open parts of the place, he arrived on the edge of the main square and spotted his target immediately. Grinning like the proverbial cat Jazz dropped silently down to street level stood up and staggered out of the concealing shadow of the alleyway, just another over energised body in a crowd that was two-thirds drunk.

Rolling away from a fight that he'd started between two drunken pimps he collided with his real target as hard as he could with out seriously injuring the man swiftly injected the sub-dermal tracking device into one over fleshed arm staggered back and collapsed in a sprawl on the floor.

"Watch were you're going you walking pile of scrap!" the man snapped pulling an energy pistol and waving it in Jazz's face "or you'll be feeding the smelters."

Before Jazz could open his mouth to slur out a drunken apology, a heavy green hand clamped itself on his shoulder and dragged him to his feet.

"Sorry 'bout him boss. He can't hold 'is high-grade." A gruff bass voice reverberated behind him "get those stick pins under ya' Cron an' haul aft."

Staying in character Jazz staggered across the square in the gentle but very firm grip of the other mech, as soon as the shadows of the alley Jazz had stumbled out of swallowed them the grip was release and Jazz spun round to look the newcomer over. Taller than Jazz his dark green armour was covered with scrapes, patches, weld lines and dents, he stood slightly bow legged and stooped shouldered, pale yellow optics shone faintly in his lined and sad face an old, tired and run down mech, no threat to anyone ever.

"Thanks for the double act rescue, Sync."

"No problem 'Cron', now you want to tell me what the glitch you're doing here?"

"Not here, we'll hit the nest."

The leader of the most ruthless Autobot black ops team in the galaxy swept his hand out in an invitation to lead the way, and as they vanished back in to the dark Jazz couldn't shake the feeling that trouble with a capital T had just come crashing down on his shoulders.


	3. You've got a friend in me?

_--- Early the following morning ---_

Jazz stopped in a small alcove several miles below the surface pulling Sync in beside him, he knelt down and popped open a floor panel revealing his surveillance nest. Just before he dropped down into it those old habits and suspicions erupted from the corner of his mind were he'd been bottling them up since Sync's hand had landed on his shoulder. It'd been millennia since he'd last seen Sync, let alone worked with him, and wasn't it just a bit odd that he'd appeared out of the blue here and now in the nick of time to do a quicker, less noisy extraction than the one Jazz had planned on? Especially since no one on the planet was supposed to know about the job he was really here to do. The more Jazz thought about it the more it was looking like he'd been compromised, which lead to a more disturbing thought, if Jazz went down first he'd be a perfect target for an explosive round to the head or, worse, if Sync had jumped the line, for a EMP shot and then right into the hands of who ever was paying the bill. Decepticons if he was lucky, if he wasn't, Jazz swallowed convulsively and tried to put that set of images out of his mind.

"'fraid I'll drop ya?"

Jazz slowly stood, examining Sync more closely in the harsh light of the corridor, he stood in the deceptively relaxed guard position that all ops teams adopted, there were no signs of the tiny telltale vibrations of the other mechs electro field that were the unconscious signals of something wrong. His gaze was everywhere but Jazz as he scanned the corridor almost without thinking about it, all perfectly normal. Still Jazz's instincts were screaming a warning at him, and he trusted those instincts.

"Yes."

"Good to see that ya still have some the training I pounded into ya'."

Sync grinned widely and tossed his rifle at Jazz, not that Jazz thought for a moment that Sync was any less dangerous but it was an act of trust reinforced by Sync dropping into the nest first. Taking a deep steadying breath and banishing his doubts and fears to an unused corner of his processor Jazz climbed down after him, closing the hatch behind him. They stood facing each other across the small room, just out of arms reach, Jazz had sub spaced the other mechs rifle and drawn his pistol which he now pointed at Sync who rested up against the far wall.

"Long time no see. You up to tellin' me why you're here?"

"Blocking up exits, you're just a bonus." Sync's grin turned predatory, "a very welcome bonus."

Jazz took a firmer grip on the gun, tried not to look as nervous as he suddenly felt, and stubbornly ignoring the voices in the back of his CPU shouting 'I told you so' asked.

"How much, and who's paying?"

Sync sighed and slid down the wall into a sitting position, arms draped over his knees, his face losing the grin, a slight melancholy entering his optics, his voice was subdued.

"Its free, we applied for and were granted debt leave. We're collecting for Scan."

Jazz felt the universe lurch under him, he stared at Sync in disbelief. Debt leave, the one free mission that a team was granted before its members retired from ops. A chance to settle one old score with anyone in the universe. He lowered the gun shocked out of any thoughts over Sync's allegiance; this was one subject no mech brought up unless it was the truth.

"You...you… you're tellin' me that the Hell Riders are goin' out of business?"

"I am. We're almost ready to close out. I'm here to put a few holes in some transport plans so none of 'em can leg it when we move." Sync paused and then continued "there's a slot for a class one saboteur, if you're willing?"

Jazz didn't need to think about the answer, Scan was an old debt, a very painful old debt, and this was the only chance he'd get to settle up.

"I'm in. I need to finish up here first though. The boss 'll have my empty spark case as a mug if I split before I blow this slaving ring."

"Slaving! Here? Who? Tell me everything"

Sync demanded in outrage and Jazz belatedly remembered that before being rescued by another ops team Sync had spent his sparkling years as a slave. Taking a deep breath and fighting his thoughts back to the mission Prime had given him he filled his former commander in.

_--- Three weeks ago ---_

"Move it, move it, move it, for Priums sake GET A MOVE ON!"

Jazz yelled as he rounded a pile of buckled hull plates on two wheels, laser blasts splattering around him.

"I'm not standing still here ya' know boy"

Sync groused, his air cushion was having trouble with the uneven ground and he slid off the path and out over a pool of liquid that he didn't dare analyse.

"Ha! Don't look like it to me old man, where the slag did you say you'd parked the ship?"

"In the scrap yard!"

Jazz had all his sensors and senses stretched to the limit trying to detect their way off this planet. Unfortunately all he could currently find was more scrap piles none of which was going to get them away from the assorted goons who now wanted to spread his and Sync's energon over a wide area. With Sync's help he'd wrapped the mission up successfully and all the information was safely in the hands of the necessary galactic authorities, who'd just been itching for a chance to storm the dockyards.

_Murphy must be killing himself laughing at this_ Jazz thought bitterly as a laser beam kissed his paintwork; _we manage, without too much difficulty, to gather enough data on the master mind of one of the last big slaving rings in this half of the galaxy for the high up's to bust him without anyone finding out. Then we manage to pass it on to said high ups, again without any leeks. We even manage to ensure that none of our other targets transport its usable, without so much as burning a finger but being just one slagging minute late for dinner means we run into the one son of an ice glitch who can i.d Sync! _

Jazz spotted the scout ship hunkered down in the shelter of a mountain of empty fuel tanks, transmitting the location to Sync he was forced to ditch his alt form and roll right as a tight cluster of missiles impacted around him. Looking round as he snapped a couple of shots back at his pursuers he saw that Sync had also abandoned his alt mode and was moving towards the shuttle using the piles of junk as cover. Eventually they were both hunkered down behind a stack of broken energy converters, just an inconveniently spaced gap from the shuttle door, Sync gave Jazz his trade mark crazy grin, thumbed a few small round objects from a dispenser on his waist and flung them in the direction of their pursuers.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Run!"

A series of small but very bright explosions erupted, under cover of these and the confusion they caused Jazz and Sync threw themselves across they gap and under the slowly opening door of the shuttle. Sync stabbed the close panel as he slid past. They ended that slide as a confused pile of limbs against the back of the pilots chair, untangling themselves Jazz felt the ship rock as shots found there mark. Sync was busy at the controls and the faintest rumble went through the floor as the engines came on line.

"And we're so outa here!"

Sync pushed the throttle controls to max and the ship shuddered more violently as it took off, straining to escape the pull of gravity. Jazz let out a relived sigh and collapsed into the navigator's chair.

"Next time Sync we need a better get out plan."

"Next time we'll have a full team behind us. We're headed for Keitel, ya might want to call Prime and tell him ya done here."

"Yeah and I need to tell him something to keep him off my case while we go collecting." Jazz said grimly, "They don't know much 'bout my past and I'd like ta keep it that way."

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Virtual energon goodies to anyone who recognised the inspiration for the: were did you leave the ship conversion and many thanks to all those who've reviewed this story. Coming up Prowl angst and the answer to just who the three unfortunate mechs of the first chapter were.


	4. The rule of Murphy

Sorry for the delay in getting this one up but RL has been a bit of a glitch recently. Not quite as angst ridden as I thought it would be, but hey ho. Thanks to all you brave souls who've read this far please please please review and let me know how I'm doing.

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_---Earth two days later ---_

Prowl dropped like a stone into a chair in the quarters he shared with Jazz, the silence of the room crowded in round him reinforcing Jazz's absence and he found himself getting as jumpy about Jazz's absence as Jazz had been about the reasons he was going to be gone. With them sharing quarters he'd been given a front row seat into some of the things that lurked in the back of Jazz's mind, he'd been startled almost into shutdown the first time Jazz had onlined from recharge in what he had taken to calling 'paranoid spy mode'. There had been no warning, he had been sitting at the desk reviewing the previous day's duty log and he'd turned round to find Jazz millimetres from him with a knife in his hand and a look on his face as if he expected to find half the 'con army in the room. After a few seconds tense silence Jazz had lowered the knife and given him a half hearted grin,

"Sorry, old habit kicking in. Best way to take someone off guard is to jump them when they first online, snapping awake like that's saved my life a few times."

He'd taken to staying on his bunk pressed up against the wall, trying to appear as non threatening as possible until Jazz had fully woken up after that, the look in the saboteurs optics had convinced him that if Jazz ever perceived him as a threat it would be a case of strike first and ask questions later. Then the nightmare had begun, he'd often wondered what it would take to terrify the Porsche. Having listened to the screaming and the things he cried out during his nightmares he had concluded that the life Jazz had led before being assigned to their unit was not one he would have been able to endure. The first time Jazz had started screaming he'd rolled of his bunk without thinking and tried to wake Jazz, what had followed was a very confused 4 seconds before he'd found himself on his back on the floor unable to move with a still not fully online Jazz pressing the barrel of an illegal pistol between his optics. The fraction of a microsecond before Jazz's mind caught up with his body had been the one of the most terrifying moment of his entire existence, Jazz, to give him his due had been as horrified by what had almost happened as he'd been. Neither of them had felt like going back into recharge and had spent the night talking, Jazz had eventually persuaded him that leaving him to scream and shout through his nightmares would be better for Prowl's health. _I could see how badly he was coping with the idea of going on the mission I should have called the whole thing off and found a different way to do this_ Prowl thought turning on his heels in the still ominously quiet room, _preferably before the 'twins incident'_ a shudder ran up his spine.

The only warning anyone had had was Sideswipe's yell as he'd dropped through the space were a ceiling panel had been, as Sunstreaker burst from one of the cupboards that lined the corridor and tried to grab their victim from behind. The raised optic ridges and sighs of 'there they go again' had been cut off mid flow by a scream from one of the twins and then by Sideswipe's body flying through the door to the common room at waist height. Mirage had been closest to were the body fell and as he'd turned Sideswipe over to revel the damage Prowl's first thought had been that somehow a Decepticon had made it into the Ark, as Ratchet rushed over to the downed twin and began working feverishly, trying to stabilise him, he and Ironhide had run out into the corridor fully prepared to take on who ever was out there. What they found had stopped them both dead, First Aid was working over the torn body of Sunstreaker and crouched in a defensive stance covered in the twins energon was Jazz, a deadly look on his face. Prime alerted by Tracks had come running down the other half of the corridor stopping beside him, taking in the whole scene in one glance he had marched over to Jazz who'd swung round to face him. It had been a pump stopping moment, would Jazz recognise his commander or would he attack, all those gathered in the corridor had let out a sigh of relief as Jazz started and came back to his usual self at Primes first words of anger.

Alone in his quarters Prowl winced at the memory of the dressing down Prime had delivered, Hound and Trailbreaker had been assigned to take Jazz to the isolation cell and Ratchet and First Aid had commandeered others to help move the twins to the repair bay for emergency work. He and Prime had gone to Prime's office and sat there is disbelieving silence waiting for word on the twins. Many hours later when an exhausted Ratchet had called to tell them the twins were out of danger he'd remembered that no one had checked to see if Jazz had been injured, so he'd gone down to the cells a good deal of trepidation floating round his CPU. He'd carefully and slowly opened the cell door and put his head round the door even more carefully, but Jazz hadn't moved from his spot in the opposite corner, knees drawn up against his chest arms curled round his shins his wrists still bound together by energon restraints. He had slowly walked over and knelt down reaching out to deactivate and remove the restraints, Jazz's face was pale and his optics were fastened on the middle distance, dried energon splattered over his upper body but particularly over his hands. He'd found the sight disturbing on so many levels he'd had to get some water and try and clean as much of it off as he could. He'd almost finished gently cleaning those delicate claw like fingers when Jazz had registered someone was with him, and then who it was and had collapsed in an emotional heap on his shoulder muttering incomprehensible words tears spilling down his face. He and Prime had given serious thought to abandoning the mission after that. When they went down to the cell the next morning however Jazz had been determined to go through with it.

Officially, Jazz had been exiled from the Autobots for an unspecified length of time; they had decided not to make a lot of noise about it, Jazz had simply slipped out of a back entrance onto a waiting shuttle and left with out anyone knowing. Hound had gone down to take Jazz his breakfast the next morning and come scrambling into Prime's office rambling that Jazz was missing only to be stopped cold by Prime telling him the sentence he'd imposed on Jazz, the rumour mill had done its work and by mid shift there wasn't an Autobot on the planet who didn't know. He smiled sadly to himself, over the past four and a half months every 'bot on the base, except Prime, had come into his office at least once to plead for clemency for the saboteur.

The sound of his internal radio brought him back from his thoughts.

"Prowl"

"It's Prime, our exile has sent a message, get down here."

He was out the door before Prime had cut the line, if Jazz had broken radio silence it could only mean that the mission was over and he would soon have a room full of songs again, it was, he reflected a very appealing prospect.

_-- Prime's Office ---_

Prime looked closely at his 2IC, Prowl was so tense he was practically vibrating in his chair. He smiled beneath his battle mask Prowl was obviously missing Jazz more than he was prepared to let on, and he wasn't the only one. The months since Jazz had left had been filled with mechs petitioning him for Jazz's return, the most memorable had been the twins, who had literally got down on their knees and begged. Nearly a month later their promise of no pranks and no fights was still holding.

"It's dated two days ago at origin, and all this solar activity has scrambled it badly. It came directly into my private inbox, by passing all the other communication and security systems." Prime started as the door locked closed.

"Two days? That's a long time for a message to get here from there."

"It looks like Jazz bounced it off every commercial satellite in the galaxy, trying to throw anybody tracing communications off."

"Have you listened to it?"

"No. I thought it would be more appropriate for both of us to hear it together. Just in case he's taken the 'this message will self destruct in 30 seconds' thing to heart."

Prime smiled at the snort that was Prowl's response and started the message, static and interference crackled through the speakers and then buried in all the noise as familiar voice could be heard.

"Jazz … Ark, mission …A1 … a friend … trouble. In transit ... Keitel … help … safe… please … come…"

The crash of Prowl's chair hitting the floor reverberated in the still of the office; Prime couldn't recall the tactician ever having looked so distressed. Not that he was much more sanguine about the situation, Jazz had pulled off a very dangerous mission, alone, unaided, under considerable stress from past memories and had apparently landed himself in bigger trouble as a result.

"Yes we are going after him, no not mob handed, and yes we will use revoking his exile as the official reason. How soon can you have a shuttle ready to launch?"

Prime answered all of Prowl's questions before he could ask them and then grinned even harder under cover of his mask as the other mech visible pulled himself together and began plotting.

"Omega Supreme could make it in 24 hours You, Me and?"

"Just the two of us, the reason Jazz is on his own out there is we couldn't risk spreading the secret, besides do you really want the others to find out the real reason Jazz was 'exiled'. Which also means we need to go by shuttle. Anything else is going to shout that we think Jazz's in big trouble and we need to be fully functioning to help him."

Prowl thought about that, given the strength of feeling in the Ark over the issue, he and Prime would probably get only a third of the way through any explanation before having to spend a lot of time in the repair bay, providing Ratchet agreed to fix them in the first place.

"Point. We can launch a shuttle tomorrow afternoon, how are we going to tell the others?"

"With as much fanfare as possible."

_--- 4 days later, Sln Docks, Keitel ---_

"Still got that fix on Jazz?"

Prime looked around at the broken down cityscape, an uninspiring and probably dangerous place to live but perfect if you wanted to hide, they were going to have to be careful.

"Yes, 3 miles south of here. We need to keep our eyes open, this looks like a shoot first kind of place."

They began to thread their way through the crowded streets keeping as low a profile as they could totally oblivious to the figure shadowing them. Following Jazz's short range locator beacon they eventually came to a small scrap shop which looked like it had been built out of the merchandise it sold, the door scrapped open with a noise load enough to wake the dead and a voice from the back yelled out it response.

"RATCHET! Get your scrawny aft into the shop."

Prime and Prowl valiantly tried to suppress face splitting grins, as Jazz stomped his way into the shop from the yard trailing a long string of colourful curses, most of which they'd heard crossing the lips of the CMO over the millennia.

"… slagging, pit spawn. Why the glitch do think Primus gave you legs, huh, so you could run your latest slave into the covenant-forsaken ground? Yes well, what do you want?"

The last was aimed at them, along with a glare that would have made the real CMO proud. Still struggling to suppress their amusement at the impersonation neither of them moved from the shadowed corner they stood in causing Jazz to burst into curses again.

"I haven't got all glitiching day here. If you want something haul your aft's into the light so I can see you and get the pit on with it."

Prowl gathered himself and slouched forward causally into the late afternoon sunlight that streamed through holes in the roof.

"Sorry Ratch, we jus' come past see if you's OK, pick up a rumour you in too deep."

A slight widening of the optics, quickly suppressed, was the only reaction Jazz gave to the sight of his fellow officers standing in the shop. He yelled over his shoulder to the unseen mech in the back of the shop.

"Boss, I'm headed out. Gota little private business to deal with."

Ignoring the shouts from within Jazz grabbed Prowl by the arm and pushed Prime out of the shop into the yard, stopping only when they reached the corner furthest from the shop.

"What the slag are you doing here? Didn't you get my message?" he hissed anger and fear evident in his voice, "Were you followed? Who else is here? Where are they?"

Prowl held up his hands to stop the flow of questions.

"Yes we got the message but it was a bit scrambled, it sounded like you need help and we decided to provide it, no I didn't see anyone following us, we're alone. What's the problem?"

Jazz sagged against the fence groaning softly to himself about Murphy really having it in for him.

"The message was, that I had run into some trouble but with the help of a friend I could handle it and the best thing you could do was to please stay away. You need to get the slag out of here, where'd you set down?"

"Sln docks, berth 36. Shuttle should have been refuelled by now. Are you sure you don't want us to stick around?"

Prime responded, feeling more than a little unhappy about leaving Jazz in the middle of whatever mess they'd unintentionally landed him in.

"Absolutely! No offence but, you guys are in way over your depth." The patented dazzling grin flashed across his face "Leave it to the expert, go find somewhere close by get some R'n'R and I'll call you when I'm done."

---

Sliding through the rapidly darkening slums Prime and Prowl following him as best they could, Jazz couldn't shake the feeling they were being watched. _This is going to be every shade of not good_ he thought just as a moving shape on one of the rooftops flashed in the corner of his optics. The high pitched howl of an energy weapon discharging shattered the silence and Prime went down without even managing to pull his riffle, Prowl did mange to get a couple of acid-pellet round off before being dropped by an EMP round. Jazz fighting off several attackers could do nothing to help either of them, and then suddenly he found himself in a wide circle, checking to see if there was a way out Jazz was brought up short by Sync stepping out of the darkness a stunner in his hands.

"So, so trusting Jazz, should have listened to ya instincts. The boss wants a few words with you"

"Fall into the pit, you treacherous ice glitch!"

Jazz snapped back, venom dripping from his voice.

"You first."

Jazz heard the howl of the stunner as it discharged and the world in front of his visor went white.


	5. A world of hurts

OK folks this is where the story get's dark and angsty and well depressing really. The POV thing is a bit of an experiment so I'd love your thoughts on how good/bad/terribly I've managed to pull it off. Also just to tell you that your author is now retreating to a plasma-cannon proof bunker until this story is over.

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_---Two days ago. Jazz's POV---_

Pain.

It's a simple thing, especially when your whole world's reduced to it, and ten thousand volts directly into your laser core will do that real quick. Trust me on this one. 'Cause there are a whole load other ways to reduce a mech to a screamin' wreck, an' right now I think I've been reintroduced to most of em' and the rest are just waitin' for their turn, and it's not just physical pain. It's killin' me emotionally to see Prime and Prowl havin' ta witness this, Prime's never really understood what ops can entail, he's too noble and upright to sink to this kinda thing and tends to judge folks he don't know by his own standards. Prowl's logically known 'bout this sorta thing for a long time, mean he's planned most the ops I been on, but it's been just a theory, one more variable ta consider, never something he's seen happen' in front o' him. It's a whole universe of difference between knowin' somethin' and seein' it. Or sufferin' it in ma case, mean it's not like it's first time I've screamed ma way through interrogation either, I knew what was commin' ever since I woke up as they were hauling us down the stairs to this dump.

"Who else was in your team?"

Ah yes, the other painful part of this whole thing, the same endless questions, how many and who were the others, why did you come here, what was your purpose? It's enough ta' give a mech audio-ache, on other hand when she's asking the questions she's not doing agonizing things to me. Like cross wiring ma headlights or strippin' ma body shell with acid. The thing with the tin opener blade and ma armour seams, that nearly broke me that one, but nearly don't count in this game.

"Autobot Jazz, Special Operations Saboteur, 6G7739-45FF-40076A"

As if the same old questions weren't bad enough I get to give the same old answer every time, providing I can get my vocalizer to work fast enough, 'fore she does something to 'encourage' me to give an answer. A deep sigh, not a good sound right now, it means that she's got something real bad lined up.

"_A torturer will not only use physical threats, humiliation and pain but will also try and mess with your mind so much you'll be struggling to tell up from down when they were through." _Yep ma old academy instructors got that bit dead right. Mmm bad choice of phrase there Jazz man, but it's probably an accurate assessment of ma chances right now. Most 'bots be surprised by just how resigned an' cold sparked I'm being 'bout this, they see the outrageous fun lovin' side of me an' never ask why I'm like it. Well this is why, when every time you roll out on a mission you know you could wind up bein' slowly shredded or just plain dead ya tend to live to the max, no time to waste on the ordinary. I found a quote while back that sums up the way most all the ops 'bots I've ever knew lived: _in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years_.

Something heavy lands on the slab by my left audio and the flinch happens 'fore I can stop it, not for the first time I curse the fact that she started the whole process by ripping off ma visor and practically blinding me with the whole connect optics directly to the mains thing. It's hard to prepare yourself for pain when ya can't see how it's gonna be commin' at ya, which, on second thought, is probably why she did it. One of those thin spike shaped fingers teasingly trails its way across my left audio, and it's all I can do to hold still and not show just how much the feeling's getting to me. Ma' audios are very sensitive; I can hear the rustle of a cassette in the air vents at twenty paces and I'll bet the Ark she knows it too.

"Just how sensitive are they hmmm? Shall we find out Jazz?"

Oh Primus please no, the feel of a speaker being clamped over my left audio sends uncontrollable shivers down ma frame. I try desperately to twist out the way, no luck with anything, the restraints are just too solid for me to break, the locks are in places I can't get at with one hand, and splayed out like this on ma back I can't get at any of ma other tricks.

"Answer my questions and you'll never find out just how painful ultra sound pulses directly into your audios can be."

Her tone is persuasive, reasonable and most terrifying of delivered at normal conversational level, this isn't some Decepticon thug who likes to put a few dents into your armour this is a professional. I try and brace myself for what's commin' but …. the noise slices through my audio into ma CPU and the world disappears into white hot pain again. Then it's over a blast of just a second, she's playin' with me, prolonging ma sufferin' trying to soften me up one burst of pain at a time, I've a sinkin' feelin' that this is going to be a long session.

_--- Later---_

The cold wind that blows over me as the door to the room opens is a blessin' from Primus, a double one. Not only does it help cool ma systems it also means she's called time for now, I can rest and try an' recover. Well I can rest any way, she's blasted ma self repair system into the next galaxy. Time to see how the others are doin', straining ma optics I can just make out the bulky shape of Prime manacled to the wall, there's gota be a force field there too else he'd just pulled the chains out the wall. Prowls a more indistinct black and white shape I can't make out his face but I'll bet he's workin' flat out on a plan to get out o' here. To bad I'm not gonna be part of it, he an' Prime will manage to get free somehow, it'll only take one tiny mistake by this lot an then, yeah, well, that isn't going to be a pretty sight. I briefly on line ma self-diagnostic and every thin' comes up red, ok, well I knew it was only a mater of time for I checked out so while I'm still in the building I'd better tell 'em a few things. Stuff I want 'em ta know before I leave, stuff I need 'em to tell th' others when they get home.

"Tell the twins I'm so sorry fer what I did to 'em, I got so buried in ma memories I couldn't tell then from now." My vocalizer makes a scratchy noise "an' say goodbye ta the others for me please? I filed a will chip with Teltran so every thin' else should be taken care of."

Prowl interrupts, his voice sound tinny in ma audios that sound blasting really did a number on em.

"You can tell them yourself, just as soon as we get back. Hang on Jazz we'll get you out somehow."

Good ol' Prowl, we're up to our optics in hell an' he's still calmly plotting. Eventually he's gonna have to face the fact that I'm a dead mech, his logic centre and battle computer will present him with the inescapable facts. An' he's gonna take it hard, real hard. Every plan that goes wrong gets to him, even if it something trivial, like a trap to catch the twins up to no good, and I jus' know he'll blame himself for landing me in this mess. Good job I left precise instruction for a group of stubborn 'bots on how to get Prowl to talk. It's easy really, you just need to get him drunk, and that's not as hard as folk think, you just need a lot of co-conspirators, a large supply of high grade and a little device of my own making to temporarily throw out the link between his battle computer and the rest of his CPU. I hope that they'll get him to open up before he kills himself with guilt and grief over the whole thing. Prime I'm leaving to 'Hide, we came to an agreement long ago 'bout it, if either one of us was killed the other one would keep both optics on Prime, he's another one who tends to carry the weight of guilt for things he can't control. The lights go out suddenly and as I lie back on the slab to wait for another day of pain, I can here in the back of ma CPU the heavy footsteps of death coming closer and closer.

x

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Jazz is quoting Abraham Lincoln in case you were wondering.


	6. His finest hour

A/N: Warning! Warning! Even more not happy than the last chapter, also contains a small hint of Jazz/Prowl because they are just too cute together not to!

x

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_--- Yesterday, Prime's POV---_

The sound of metal sliding over metal as the door to our prison opens draws me back from my increasingly desperate search for a way out of this mess. A shudder travels the length of my frame as the sound of her slow and deliberate foot falls reaches my audios, in all my long existence I have not hated, or feared another mech as much as I do her. Jazz composes his face into the defiant calm that, Primus only knows how, he has maintained throughout this ordeal and I find my own spirits and hopes rising as I witness his courage.

"I'm sorry Jazz"

The tone freezes my spark, no emotion is present in her voice now, no hint of the pleading, persuading or commanding that had colored it for the past few days and it can't mean anything good.

"They're tired of waiting, talk to me or ..."

The soft sickening sound of a hand transforming into an implement of torture echoes loudly in the silence, I have no idea what the probe her hand becomes is for and from the confused looks on Prowl's face he doesn't know either. But Jazz knows. The shattered and burnt remains of his optics go wide and what little color he has drains away. His battered system wheezes and revs with pure fear, shattered gears whine and damaged circuit boards spark through the holes in his amour. This display of fear only lasts a very long three minuets before an unexpected look of peace and acceptance crosses Jazz's face, his systems stop there frantic racing. That old familiar smile slowly appears on the battered remains of his face.

"Autobot Jazz, Special Operations Saboteur, 6G7739-45FF-40076A"

I have never before felt so humbled by or proud of any mech as I do now, what ever Jazz thinks is coming he's determined to face it on his own terms. She stares down at him for a long moment and then abruptly raises her face to study both of us in tern, her dark purple optics blending almost totally with her dark red face plates, no emotion is visible in that gaze and that disturbs me. I am used to seeing pleasure in inflicting pain on the faces of Decepticon tortures or guilt in the eyes of the few Autobots who have lost control of their tempers and injured a prisoner. But she displays neither, I meet and hold that dead gaze as calmly and as stoically as I can if Jazz can show no fear then, slag it, so can I. She moves around to the head of the slab which Jazz is fastened to and touches the controls, with a snap that sounds as loud and clear as a gun shot the shackles open.

"You have 5 minuets"

Her retreating footsteps are softer and faster than the ones that announced her arrival, almost as if she needed to get out of the room before she lost control. The silence that falls has an ominous feel to it, the scrape of twisted and torn armor against the metal slab sounds louder than it should, the world takes on a sharper almost crystalline appearance and I suddenly feel every second slide over me like a thousand sharp blades each one cutting a tiny slice in my armor. Every diode and gear I posses reverberates with sympathetic pain as I watch Jazz slowly drag himself off the slab and onto the shattered and twisted remains of his feet. I know in my deepest transistors that there's no way out of what's coming for Jazz, and as he stands before me just out of reach on the other side of the force field that hold me prisoner more securely than the metal bonds, I can see in his optics that he knows it too.

"Prime I'll do what I can to resist but they're gonna hack me."

I can't stifle the half formed denial that rises into my vocalizer at this, to my right a moan of despair issues from Prowl, of all the things I had thought of this hadn't even made the bottom of my list.. To directly, brutally assault the core programming and memory banks of another mech for the sole purpose of ripping out information, an action always fatal to the one being hacked. A taboo action, utterly forbidden, something so terrible that not even Megatron countenances its use on prisoners. It's the most degrading and painful death possible, there is no equivalent horror on Earth that I can think of. I know Jazz would refuse any order to talk I might give him and I can't bring myself to set all his previous courage to nothing and give that order. The calm accepting tones of his voice penetrated the fog in my CPU and I concentrated on his last words to me, carving them into my audio memory to be treasured as a monument to a brave friend.

"It's been ma duty, ma pleasure, ma privilege, and ma highest honor to have served with you Optimus. And I don't regret a single micro second of any of it."

The undeniable warmth and sincerity in his optics as he takes his leave of me for the last time burns into my memory banks, and I manage, by the blessing of Primus, to respond with a steady voice.

"The pleasure, privilege and honor were all mine Jazz, few Autobots have served with such skill and courage as you have always shown. Your sacrifice will always be remembered as an example to all others of the highest level of that courage and conviction. Until all are one my friend."

Raising the handless mangled remains of his right arm, he salutes me and staggers the few steps to stand in front of Prowl. Jazz quietly begins to hum and then suddenly breaks into song

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun,  
Nor the furious winter's rages;  
Thou thy worldly task hast done,  
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:  
Golden lads and girls all must,  
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."

Prowl graces Jazz with his small shy smile and then to my amazement sings the next verse voice cracking with repressed emotion.

"Fear no more the frown o' the great;  
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;  
Care no more to clothe and eat;  
To thee the reed is as the oak:  
The sceptre, learning, physic, must  
All follow this, and come to dust."

I see a tear slipped down Prowls face as they both continue the song.

"Fear no more the lightning flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finish'd joy and moan: All lovers young, all lovers must  
Consign to thee, and come to dust."

A smile of remembrance crosses both faces and I'm reminded of the earth saying about three being a crowd.

"No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have;  
And renowned be thy grave!"

Tears unending are now streaming down the face of my usually unemotional, logical tactician and I can see his spark braking as the two of them gaze at each other with unconditional love, respect and regret, Jazz reaches out touching the force field and Prowl stretches out his hand as far as the chain will allow hands stopping a few centimetres apart. The hiss of the pistons opening the door is most unwelcome sound in the universe Jazz salutes Prowl, who very shakily returns the gesture, and then turns and limps back to the bench.

The slim dark red form of Jazz's executioner sits down of the side of the slab facing us, motioning to him to sit beside her.

"Changed your mind?"

"No"

A ghost of a bitter smile flits across her face at that. As Jazz finally sets himself down on the slab she passes her left arm around his damaged torso holding him fast against her and rests the still transformed right hand against his neck.

"Last chance."

Pride, defiance and determination colour Jazz's voice as loudly and clearly he replies.

"Autobot Jazz, Special Operations Saboteur, 6G7739-45FF-40076A"

With a small nod, she accepts his decision and before I even realize what's happened she's rammed the probe into a small and heavily shielded port on the back of Jazz's skull and they both stiffen as electricity earths itself between and around them. The rest of the world fades away, dimly I hear Prowl screaming and fighting like a wild thing against the chains that hold him, but all I really hear and see are the two mechs locked in a fight to the death over the contents of Jazzes memory banks. Screams fill the room from edge to edge interspersed with stray sound bites from past battles and events snatched from their resting place and flung into the air then, suddenly, everything crashes to a stop, and both of them violently convulse once and collapse onto the table. The world fades back in and Prowl's sobbing fills my audios, Jazz lays sprawled on one side one arm reaching out towards us as if entreating my help, suddenly an irrational hope bursts in my core, Jazz's optics glow faintly and I realize he is still alive. A scratchy sound issues from him before that warm, mellow but fading voice gives out one last song.

"Thank you for the days,  
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.  
I'm thinking of the days,  
I won't forget a single day, believe me."

His voice dwindles into silence and the light in his optics fades flares once and is extinguished forever, taking a good part of my hope, joy and belief in justice with it.

Jazz. Is. Dead.

x

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A/N part 2: I'm going to pop a finger tip above the bunker roof here to deliver these messages: The world owns Shakespeare and if you want to find the J/P song in it's original context look up the script for Cymbeline, the lyrics for Days belongs to The Kinks not me. And with RL looming large and ugly over this weekend you might not hear any more from me till mid next week, don't panic this thing has it teeth far to firmly stuck in me for me to be able to drop it.


	7. Aftermath

A/N: While the dreaded RL didn't loom quite as large over the weekend as I thought it was going to Mirage most certainly did! In fact he stomped in on Friday and dragged me away by the scruff of my neck until this chapter was written and he's still standing menacingly behind me demanding I finish the next one as well! The idea of Bumblebee as the hardened and dangerous special ops agent he is in this story belongs to Tirya King in her story Undercover which you can find on this site.

_--- Earth, now ---_

Ratchet slowly came back to an awareness of the conference room, the images of Jazz's suffering burned indelible into his memory banks, he could feel still wet tear track down his face and a deep numb horror clamped 'round his spark chamber. As a medic he knew just how much agony Jazz had endured, and he was having trouble processing it. The rest of the 'bots in the room where in no better condition, the savagery they had witnessed had shaken all of them to their smallest resistors. Ironhide and Hound had risen to their feet and still stood at the salute, the wordless tribute of one warrior to another. Beachcomber, Brawn, Cliffjumper and Huffer were a tight huddle of tears on the floor, supporting each other in their grief, Jazz always had time for. Ratchet stopped the thought with a burst of renewed pain; Jazz had always had time for all the mini-bots. The twins were sandwiched together so closely he doubted you'd be able to get a micro welder blade between them, faces slack in shock, tears still pouring down the faces, he dimly recalled they'd chocked out cries when Jazz had asked Prime to apologise to them for him. Hoist and Grapple were staring at the table as if they'd never seen one before, Trailbreaker had his head on his arms and was sobbing quietly, Tracks had bowed his head hands clasped tightly in his lap, and Ratchet thought he might be praying. Wheeljack and Preceptor were gazing at him, their optics pleading with him to tell them it wasn't real, that they hadn't just seen a beloved friend enduring torture and execution and worse that it hadn't been broadcast to the universe as entertainment.

In fact the only mechs in the room who weren't overcome with horror, grief or disbelief were Mirage and Bumblebee who were looking at each other, faces dry of tears, with unreadable expressions. Mirage tilted his head to one side and, his voice cold, hard and remote broke the silence.

"We'll need the 'krig rounds and pistols, contact explosive – suggest two grades, usual close & mid quarters kits. As much standard ammo for everyone's guns as we can pack and they'll all need some sort of silent close up."

Bumblebee nodded once, his cheerful mobile face solidified into hard uncompromising lines.

"Blow it to slag and pick a lock would be best. Liquid burn might be useful" the smile that crossed his face, under other circumstance, would have made a 'bots energon run cold "if only for creating a distraction."

Mirage gave a sharp nod; a thoughtful frown creased his face making him look feral.

"Prime might actually let us employ the stuff in kit 357, if we manage to take and keep any of them alive. And I suppose we should really take … it … with us. He always was a firm believer in that sort of thing."

Bumblebee twitched, and then reluctantly nodded

"I suppose so; it is the custom after all and well…"

He tailed off waiving a hand in the direction of the screen. They both stared into the middle distance for a few seconds, then Bumblebee twitched again, squared his shoulders turned round and walked out of the room calling over his shoulder.

"I'll go start packing the kits. Squawk if you think of anything else."

Mirage made a sound of agreement and turned his chair so it was facing a computer terminal, his fingers hovered in the air for a second as he considered something and then he began to type. Planetary stats and reports scrolled up the screen at considerable speed absorbing his whole attention, when the terminal went dark he sat back in his chair, slowly considering the Autobots in the room; Ratchet met his gaze and had to struggle for enough self control not to flee from the room. Anger, no incandescent rage burned in the depths of his optics, heavily controlled grief lurked in the set of his shoulders but the predominant emotion was an icy, determined, unstoppable thirst for revenge.

"Ratchet, Wheeljack get back to the repair bay and get together what ever kit you think you'll need to treat Prime and Prowl plus what ever injuries we might manage to pick up going after them. First Aid and Swoop will be in charge of the bay until we get back, brief them as you think necessary. Hound, inform Omega Supreme of the situation and find out what his energy requirements will be for a fully loaded two way trip to Keitel. Ironhide, the Dinobots should be back from their perimeter patrol in a few minuets, they need to know what's happened, Hot Spot, Sliverbolt ditto for your teams, you and the Dinobots will be staying here in case Megatron decides to attack. We must assume he's seen that transmission as well and he'll think were helpless with grief and lack of command structure, and if nothing else I'm slagging sure Jazz will come back and haunt us if we let earth fall to the Decepticons. If you think you need to show it the broadcast is on the main server."

Mirage paused to judge the effect his words and body language were having, the sound of someone with a plan, any one and any plan was slowly pulling the others out of their shell shocked state, looking at those he had named he waited for them to acknowledge what he'd said and then continued.

"Hoist, Grapple, please give Bumblebee a hand putting the kits together and getting it all loaded into Omega." He smiled gently at the distraught huddle of mini-bots "Bee could use your help as well. The special ops armoury isn't designed for heavy 'bots like those two."

The thought that they could do something to help avenge Jazz got them standing on their feet, tears subsiding; Beachcomber looked up at the spy and asked.

"Will you bring Ja…?"

He couldn't finish the sentence but Mirage knelt down to his level place both hands on his shoulders and in a tone that left no room for doubt replied.

"Yes, we will bring him home. He deserves to be buried with honour here among friends."

Smiling gratefully at the spy they left the conference room with Hoist and Grapple to find Bumblebee. Rising to his feet Mirage's gaze swept over the assembled mechs.

"Bluestreak, Tracks, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe you're all off duty as of now, get something to put you out and hit your berths. You're going to be the close support, Hound, Ironhide when you've finished your other tasks do the same. You all need a full recharge cycle before we go."

A round of grim and silent nods where the only response.

"Blaster, Preceptor you're with me, we need to trace that signal back to origin and find out as much about the glitches behind this as possible."

They both immediately huddled round the other terminal in the room, bringing up signal tracing and analysis programs hoping desperately that doing something would block out the memory of screams.

"Welcome to the special operations department." Mirage said a grim smile on his face as he moved to join Blaster and Preceptor "The first last and most important rule to remember is that every we do here is against the clock. You know your jobs, move it."

Everyone moved.

_--- Somewhere in the slums of Keitel, the same time ---_

"We have a problem." The speaker had a hard clipped voice, one used to making words audible through loud noise.

"That's news how?" a scratchy almost breathless voice replied.

Suppressed sniggering could be heard from the group of bodies huddled closely in the run down building that was their temporary meeting point for this cycle.

"Silence" a deep gruff, but not unfriendly voice spoke "What kind of trouble?"

"They taped the whole thing as we suspected, and now they've sold the 'highlights' to several broadcasters." The first speaker paused to allow the sounds of outrage to die away "Prime picked a good security officer; he found the broadcast in the data stream before I could block the signal. By now the rest of the Earth based team must know what's happened."

"Not good" a higher, almost exited voice "He said that the team on Earth was good, that they'd be able to put together a SRR job in forty eight hours tops. That puts them here the day after tomorrow."

"We're too close to loose our target now. How's the recon job going?" the deep voice echoed slightly in the empty room.

"I can finish the basics by mid shift tomorrow. It isn't going to be my best work but it'll do." A melodious voice floated out of a body that almost disappeared in the dim light due to its colouring.

"Everyone else is ready to go?"

There were nods of affirmation from all the others.

"Good, we advance our plans by twelve hours. The Lady looking our way we should be done and out before the Earth team gets here."

"Will he be coming with us?" the breathless voice asked

"Unknown, it's his choice, and he'll make, and stand by it on his own terms, always has, always will."

Murmurs of agreement were swallowed by the night, when no else spoke the leader made a hand signal and the meeting broke up silently, each one melting into the darkness, making their way back to the lives they hid under.


	8. Memories and Energon Oaths

A/N: Blame Mirage and Bumblebee! They wouldn't let me alone till I'd written this chapter.

x

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_--- Earth, five hours later ---_

Mirage walked into the ops armoury with the weight of knowledge heavy on this CPU, he Blaster and Preceptor had found the ones responsible for this, and the whole picture had changed. What to do now? That was the million credit question; he stopped at the table where Bumblebee was slowly and methodically cleaning his favourite gun, he could hear the other mini-bots moving around deeper in the ammunition section, pulling up every last box of laser packs and solid rounds they could find. Bee looked up and set the magazine he'd been cleaning down.

"You found them."

It wasn't a question; Bee after all knew just how good he was with this kind of hunting.

"Yes, and it's dumped a new problem in our laps."

Bee's raise optic ridge invited him to continue

"Higg Maldor."

The sharp shooter's optics narrowed as he tried to place the name and then.

"Priums on the rack! Scan! Jazz would never have gone after him alone, someone betrayed him. When I get my hands on the."

He stopped at the look on Mirage's face.

"You know who did it."

"His old commander Sync, and inadvertently Prime and Prowl."

Bee stared at him as if he'd just announced that Megatron had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

"How? Why? When? Where? Are you sure?"

Mirage nodded his head slowly; he'd checked the data four times. _I'm in dead trouble when we get Prime and Prowl back and they find out I hacked their private above top secret files,_ he thought, _but I had to know the truth._

"Jazz wasn't really exiled, he was sent on a deep cover mission. Managed to pull it off in his usual spectacular style but then appears to have run in to Sync and gone after Maldor. I did some digging and found that two Autobots left the original primary target in a big hurry, one positively identified as Commander Sync and the other a lowly dockworker allegedly named 'Cron'. From the descriptions he was Jazz with a change of paint and some extra panels, he sent Prime and Prowl a message which bypassed all of Red's security but it arrived scrambled."

Bee was nodding, fitting this information into his own observation of the command team's behaviour over the past months.

"They got the wrong idea, went after him and turned up at the wrong time. He would have too busy looking out for them to watch his own back."

Mirage nodded, neither Prime nor Prowl was exactly ops material so Jazz would have been too worried about them to think about the possibility of Sync jumping the line.

"It gets worse; I ran a check on the ice glitch that we saw shredding Jazz. Turns out she's a name from Jazz's past as well."

"Let me guess," Bee gave a resigned sigh, "his old ops team medic, Shrike?"

"Correct. I think I've found all of them working for Maldor in some way shape or form. None under their real names of course but all the holes are there, scout, medic, communications, demolition, sniper."

"We're going up against a full team that's jumped? Mirage that's a bit of a tall order."

"That's the question Bee, who do we go after? I doubt we can take them all."

"Prowl's gonna want Shrike's spark chamber as a pencil holder, no question about it."

Mirage nodded, once Prowl was free and had the medic in his sights, well he'd happily put money on the tactician taking her apart with his fingers, Bee continued.

"Once everybody here finds out who betrayed Jazz nothing in the universe is going to stop them hunting him down and, the twins do have something of a well deserved reputation.

Mirage couldn't help but agree, that hunt would have no rules or limits and only one ending.

"You and I can settle up for Scan and Jazz if we take out Maldor. Between us, the guys and Prowl we should be able to take out all three targets." He paused then asked rather too brightly "How's the packing?"

Bumblebee raised his hands skyward in a gesture of surrender.

"They've pulled every ammo box in existence down to Omega and every one has two spares of their usual weapon, which Hoist has gone over with a microscope, plus at least one knife, but I'd appreciate you taking a look at the selections, knives after all are more your thing than mine."

Mirage nodded his agreement and moved to the case Bumblebee had indicated, opening it up he listened to the continuing packing saga.

"There are four pack to each of us, two close and two mid, according to Huffer 'just in case'" he gave a deep sigh " and I've never seen so much fuss over contact explosive, I did trying explaining that you had to stick a detonator into it before slapping it to make to explode but they weren't listening. Thank Primus that the liquid burn comes heavily packed or they'd have frizzed out on me over moving that. As it was they had fits when I got the 'krig's out. Grapple dropped a few circuits when I gave them a demo of just how much punch they packed, I think he was thinking of what I could do to one of his beloved buildings."

He smiled slightly and continued.

"They all nearly off lined when I opened kit 357, obviously nobody told them that Autobot black ops had 'interrogation' equipment of its own. I gave them the standard speech about how tight the rules are, how there were strict limits on what we could do physically, and how we never hack a mech no matter what and so on. They swallowed it." he gave a one shoulder shrug, "I think it helped that all the seals were still intact, they could see we'd never used any of it"

Mirage tried to swallow his own smile; it had gone just as he'd hopped. Bee had been too busy running round after his 'help' to brood and the others had been given something to occupy them for the same reason, just one last thing to get out of storage. He put the knife case on to the last cart to go down to Omega.

"Knife selection looks good, I'm going to tell them to get some recharge before they pack Omega so full he can't get off the ground and then."

Mirage's optics slid towards a door in the corner of the room, Bee followed his gaze and twisted his face up into an expression of distaste.

"Yeah and then."

The spy turned and wove his way deeper in the complex of rooms, following the sound of arguing mini-bots, truth be told he didn't like the thought of having to load that box anymore than Bee did. It was just such a final act, one he'd performed for other agents he'd worked with, he just never though he'd be doing it for Jazz. If anything both he and Bee had assumed it would be Jazz doing it for them. He stopped in the doorway and looked at the busy, determined manner the 'distraction six', as he'd termed them in his own mind, now had. They'd even pulled together enough to be joking and twitting each other, not as much as usual but it was a start.

"You do realize that even Omega Supreme has an upper weight limit don't you?"

He asked lounging against the door a small grin lurking around his mouth in deliberate homage to the memory of a long ago conversation between himself and Jazz over the same issue.

"Get some recharge; you've done more than your share of work today, the rest of it's up to us"

As they left Hoist paused and then in a low, worried voice asked.

"You will bring everyone home won't you? I'm not sure we could stand loosing anyone else right now."

"Everyone's got a return ticket Hoist. Every Autobot, Aerialbot, Protectorbot and Dinobot on the planet is a member of special ops now and I'm not about to loose anyone else out of the department I'm temporarily joint head of."

Hoist gave him the beginnings of an uncertain smile and left. Mirage turned and walked back to the main room where Bumblebee had now finished cleaning his rifle and was reassembling it, he was working by feel and instinct Mirage noted, lost in his thoughts. Deciding that they could both do with time to reflect on events and prepare mentally for what was coming he pulled out a large part of his personal array of knives and began to clean them.

An undetermined amount of time later he picked up the Autobot sized Katana that Jazz had brought back for him from a trip to Japan, as tradition, both human and cybertronian, dictated the blade was kept razor sharp and he never replaced it in the scabbard without it drawing blood, or energon in his case. The sword was beautiful and deadly, the handle was wrapped in blue and white cord and a row of tigers leapt and stalked down both sides of the blade, Jazz had done some calculations and worked out that according to the Chinese lunar calendar that was his birth sign, it had been a creation day gift. He remembered how delighted Jazz had been at his reaction when he'd opened the box, a melancholy smile drifted over his face, he'd made a point of learning how to use it according to the traditions of the people who'd created it, dragging a willing Jazz into his research then in to practise fights and finally down to the repair bay when he'd severed one of Jazz's major energon lines trying to master a complicated pattern of strikes.

"I think it was the only time I've seen him taken completely by surprise. The look on his face when he got back down here and you dropped onto both knees and begged to be allowed to apologise with your life was just priceless."

Mirage surfaced from his memories to see Bee sat across the table gazing reflectively at the blade as he continued.

"The first, last and only time I think I've ever seen him speechless."

The half formed thoughts that had been swirling round his CPU suddenly coalesced and he held out his left hand and ran the blade lightly over it, using just enough pressure to split the skin and draw energon.

"In memory of Jazz, an honourable warrior, a noble leader and a generous friend. I swear an oath to give him a worthy burial and to bring everyone who goes with me back safely."

He looked at Bee and flipped the blade edge up, without pause Bee ran his hand over the sword shedding his own energon over the blade.

"So sworn and witnessed."

He stood and returned the sword to its sheath, Bee got to his feet and without further words they walked towards the corner storage bay. There were fewer boxes in here, each one on a shelf by itself. Bee reached out and ran a still leaking hand over a small wide one; Mirage placed his sliced hand flat on top of another longer but slimmer box. They both came to a stop in front of a box that was as long and slim as the one Mirage had stopped by but this one was deeper, they both rested their hands on the lid for a moment, the significance of this act settling over them like a heavy cloak. Still in silence they pulled the box out of its resting place, Bumblebee took hold of the front and held it on his shoulders by the short poles that projected from the front so Mirage could get a firm grip on the ones at the back. With a slow and solemn step they left the special operations department and walked through the Ark and out into the crisp clean Washington night.

Having stowed the box in Omega's observation deck, they stood in the dark looking up at the stars. Bee pointed at one group of stars to the south just skimming the horizon.

"The phoenix is rising. A good omen I think."

Mirage nodded, _yes maybe we can kindle a new flame from the ashes of Jazz's death._


	9. Pax Cybertronica

A/N: that crashing sound gentle reader was my jaw shattering as it made contact with the desk as I saw the number of hits this story has racked up, currently it stands at over 1,800 and I'm amazed and humbled that so many of you are reading this. Huge thanks to all of you who have hung on this far and to everyone who's reviewed this story: you guys make my day.

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_---- Just before dawn the next day, low earth orbit. ----_

The rough buffeting of earth's outer atmosphere subsided and the peace of space settled around them as Cosmos pulled up along side Omega, he'd called Mirage earlier and firmly stated his intention to act as fighter escort until they were out of the solar system in case any Decepticons put in an appearance. They were coming up on the asteroid belt when Cosmos picked up another ship approaching them rapidly from behind, he checked his scanner a few seconds later when the ship was in range and nearly fell out of orbit in shock, ran a few diagnostics and tried again, _defiantly Astrotrain but his readings are odd, no weapons no shields and he's running so hot that even earth based scanners can pick him out. _ Switching to a wide band broadcast that could be heard by everyone in the area he hailed the approaching shuttle.

"Cosmos to Astrotrain, why are you here?"

Astrotrain responded immediately on the same wide band.

"On Megatron's orders to be his herald, and because I wanted to offer my help, to ask if you'll let me be a part of your fighter escort, just in the solar system."

Inside Omega the collected Autobots stared at each other in bemusement, just when they thought life couldn't possible get any weirder. Finally pulling himself together enough to form a sentence Mirage transmitted over the comm.

"Herald you may declare your message."

The message when it came seconds later had obviously been learnt by rote, was framed in the formal language of the aristocracy of the golden age and sounded decidedly odd in the vocalizer of the big triple changer.

"The Lord Protector Megatron, leader of the Decpeticons by strength of arms and ruler of Cybertron by conquest in war declares that having witnessed the courage, steadfastness, strength of will and devotion to your cause of the Autobot known as Jazz during his torment at the hands of those who value those things not, he has determined to offer unconditional truce. Further he says there will be no fighting or raiding of any sort by any of his troops until your return with the body of said Autobot Jazz and those of your leaders who were imprisoned with him be they living or dead, and that it pleases him to wait until the rites of vigil, burial and mourning are completed before recommencing hostilities between our two sides. And that all may know this he has in his own person this day delivered the same to your comrades on earth."

Silence, absolute silence existed in the room where the rescue team sat. No one moved or even dared to breath, in fact several CPU's were very close to overloading from shock. After several minuets and several thousand miles of space had passed Bluestreak managed to get his processes going enough to ask, reverently in the hush.

"Do you think he means it?"

Mirage blinked his optics several times, and then responded.

"Yes, I think he does. Megatron may be a tyrant bent on the domination of the universe and the destruction or enslavement of every Autobot in existence, but he does have honour of a sort, twisted as it may be its still there."

Soft mummers of agreement hung in the air, switching back to the wide band he paused a moment to compose an appropriate response.

"Herald your message is heard and witnessed by those here present, and we thank you for it. Hear now our response, I Mirage last living child of the house of Acies which had dwelt in the city of Iacon since the coming of freedom even unto its destruction, by the free consent of my companions' leader of this company and officer in the Autobot army do accept this offer of truce in the spirit it has been offered. I ask that you convey to the Lord Protector my most sincere and grateful thanks for his gracious actions in these most dreadful circumstances, further tell unto him that I do consider his behaviour the mark of a noble and honourable warrior and leader."

"Um OK."

Mirage grinned at Astrotrain's confusion at the wordy and archaic response, and at the raised optic ridges of most of the other Autobots and broadcast over the tight band internal channel.

"What, it's the correct form for these things."

Shaken heads and long looks where the only response to that. Still grinning Mirage called the Ark and was answered by a confused and bewildered looking Blaster.

"Um guys, Megatron was just here and well, um he's"

"Offered full and formal truce until after we've buried Jazz, we know. Astrotrain just gave us the same message, have you made a response?"

"Preceptor made a speech and the 'cons just left. You want to talk to him?"

Blaster reached out and pulled the scientist into range of the screen, he looked about as perturbed as everyone else.

"Mirage I accepted the offer."

"As did I, with all the full and appropriate formalities, flourishes and courtesies just about the only thing missing is a signed data pad. Don't worry about it, if Prime or Prowl blow a gasket over it I'll take the fall; just make sure everyone else down there knows to play nice if they run into any Decepticon OK."

"Agreed, I'll do by best to impress the gravity of the situation to everyone."

Mirage signed off as Astrotrain took up station on the other side of Omega, he had a feeling he was going to have to do a lot of explaining when this was all over, for now though he settled down against the hull and slipped into recharge, the more rest he got now the better he'd be able to cope with what ever the pit flung his way later.

_---- Seven hours later, two thirds of the way between Earth and Keitel ----_

"So"

Sunstreaker drawled looking at Mirage and Bee who had spent the past two hours with their heads together going over the fine details of the plan.

"You gonna tell us the real story behind this, or shall we speculate wildly?"

Mirage looked at the yellow twin carefully, under the camouflage of the simple vicious fighter lurked a sharp CPU. Given enough time and a good reason Sunstreaker was quite capable of going through the computer systems and making two plus two equal six. _The question is just how much truth do I tell them?_ He considered the problem silently for a few moments, _enough to satisfy their need to know why Jazz died but little enough not to destroy their perception of him. _A heavy sorrowful sigh escaped his lips._ Forgive me Jazz they're going to have to have to be told what you last job really entailed, about Scan and why you left the Hell Riders._

"You must understand I don't know everything about Jazz's past. The bits I do know are the result of several drunken nights in the back room of a seedy bar in a very deprived city after the unmaker of a mission went wrong and we had more bounties on our sparks than I care to remember."

Bee pushed his chair out of range of Mirage's arm, and his face settling into a look of cherubic innocence, said in a stage whisper to Hound who sat next to him.

"Don't ask about the all female exotic dance troop and their ah 'interactive' routine"

Hound choked on his energon and Mirage aimed a lethal glare at Bee who deepened his grin.

"Anyway,"

Mirage said loudly overriding the sniggering and suggestive comments that were being made, mostly by the twins.

"There we were hiding out in this back room, minus some weaponry and a few armour panels."

More cat calls and knowing grins were studiously ignored.

"Both of us had busted transformation cogs and so many holes in what panels were left, plus the usual assorted broken struts, burnt out circuits and sliced lines, that if any of the hunters had found us we might just have been able to toss insults at them. Looking back on it getting hammered every night for a week on a volatile mix of bootleg high grade and raw alcohol may not have been the smartest move."

At Bluestreak's frankly dubious look, Jazz after all had been renowned for holding his high-grade and Mirage never participated in the drunken revelry that swept the Ark sometimes, Mirage smiled gently and said in the same tone of voice he would have used to comment on the weather.

"We thought we were dead. We just didn't know how," he began to tick off the ways on his fingers, "shot by the bounty hunters, slowly shredded by their employers, leaking to death from internal injuries, laser core shutdown from power glitches or fuel starvation. So Jazz decided we should hold our own vigil, and I suggested we may as well give the whole idea of solemn and sober a miss as we could rely on the team that eventually found our carcasses do to that. Jazz agreed and we tried our hardest to go out by high-grade poisoning."

"Primus Mirage! When did you become so blasé about dying?"

Sideswipe exclaimed in the shocked silence that followed, everyone but Bee was asking the same question with their optics.

"When I signed up for the special operations department, I walked into my job knowing beyond any doubt that there was practically no chance of me getting out alive. Everyone who makes it through the academy and on to a team knows that."

After a few moments pause while they absorbed the implications of that statement he continued.

"So there we were, completely smashed in all senses of the word and I finally work up enough courage or got over energised enough to ask why he signed up with Prime. I mean he was the top field saboteur, a member of the Hell Riders the best most ruthless team we posses. Their record's still unbroken, the number of missions survived, primary and second targets achieved. They top the league, and Jazz was an excitement junkie, the bigger the risk the better he performed and even before we left Cybertron the sort of missions we were doing as part of this unit was nothing like what he'd been used to."

Bee set a cube of energon down on the table in front of him and he wrapped his hands about it, gazing into it.

"Jazz, when he was a Rider, wasn't Jazz. Or at least not the Jazz we knew, you two were so lucky," he waived a hand at the twins "some small fraction of his control must have still been there or you'd have been dead then and there. He may not have shown it but Jazz was a cold oiled killer, he had to be, in the games the Riders played it was kill or be killed. I'm not sure how much of this next bit was the truth and how much was the cocktail talking but he said he,"

Mirage shifted uncomfortable in his chair, avoiding everyone's optics.

"He said that back then he enjoyed killing."

A chill settled over the room, and Mirage made no move to break it. Finally Ratchet asked as if afraid of the answer.

"So why did he leave?"

"Scan, a box of magnesium flares and a lot of undiluted burn."

_---- The same time, Maldor's torture chamber. Prowls POV ----_

I know exactly how long it's been since Jazz died, two and a half days, 55 hours 41 minuets and 17 seconds, three thousand three hundred and forty one minuets, two hundred thousand four hundred and seventy seven seconds, five hundred sixty-seven thousand nine hundred and seventy pump beats, the same amount of time I've been slowly dissolving in this acid pit of pain and guilt. But that's no time compared to my expected lifespan, the rest of which I fully expect and deserve to spend drowning in this agony. It's my fault, all my fault, if I'd found another way of taking out that ring Jazz would never have left the safety of Earth, never have had to worry about two clumsy unskilled useless mech blowing his cover. When that message came in I should have planned, used my logic centre and battle computer more, and thought about all the possible missing words been cool and methodical not gone running across the galaxy on emotion.

Oh Jazz, Jazz all these centuries you've tried to get me to 'loosen up' and 'go with the flow' and the first time I do, the first time, the first slagging time I do, a rough sobbing noise escapes my abused vocaliser adding another minor pain to the symphony playing itself out in my shell, is this how yours felt Jazz? With all the screaming we did, mine were screams of denial and guilt yours were screams of agony and after all the screams she wrung from you, how did you manage to keep that beautiful voice? It still echoes in my head that duet, a last and precious gift, something that they couldn't take from me, an unbreakable memory, you always told me that music could say more in one stave than all the poets and writers in the universe could ever say. I heard so many messages in that song Jazz and the one I find hardest to believe is that you forgave me for landing you in this mess.

"Prowl"

Prime's voice, soft with respect for my guilt and grief, hard with anger at those responsible, full of the promise of vengeance. He still talking, but I can't hear his words, the sound fills my audios like a low rumbling. My world has collapsed down into a maelstrom of grief, guilt and the burning flames of vengeance, perhaps after all my life isn't going to be an eternity of slowly dissolving under the acid of guilt and the knives of grief. Perhaps the flames of revenge will burn me to ash fit only to be scattered on the wind. She is still out there beyond these walls, pulling apart Jazz's corpse, allowing him no dignity even in death, trying to glean any information from what is left of his memory banks and data storage. I feel the edges of my CPU being to fade away, I haven't recharged for too long, and I can't fight it any longer but before I give in to oblivion I have one last task to do. Summoning up the last scraps of my physical, emotional and mental strength I force my vocaliser to work.

"Primus here me, I swear I will get free, I will hunt down all those responsible and I will kill them with my bare hands."


	10. Jazz Tales

"Start at the beginning, go through to the end and then stop."

Trailbraker's advice broke some of the icy tension in the room, as those who got the reference laughed. Mirage grinned and shot Bee a conspiratorial look asking silently _you want in on this?_ The minute twitch of Bee's optics told Mirage that he was on his own for this one.

Mirage held up his hands in mock surrender "First you need to understand how an ops team works, everyone has a specialty, sharp shooter," a nod in Bee's direction, "Spy," he jerked his thumb at his chest, "Saboteur, scout, communication, demolition, transport. That's not a full list but you get the idea, in the field you work as a pair, scout and sniper, comms and demolitions, everyone has a usual partner except the medic who floats around a lot."

He paused to collect a round of understanding nods and noises and then continued.

"Well the most common pair up is transport and saboteur; get in there, do the job and get out ASAP if not faster. Scan was the Riders transport unit, if it flew in the air or in space, rolled along on or hovered near the ground or sailed on or moved under the water he could make it do things the designers never imagined their creations doing. You want that little orbital hopper to do 5 times it's top speed? Give Scan 10 minuets, a box of bits and it's not a problem. You want that interplanetary freight to be in dock for the next week, 2 minuets with the engines and it wasn't going anywhere for months."

"Sounds like my kind of mech." Wheeljack commented

"From what Jazz told me you'd have got on wonderfully, he and Jazz were a real pair. Scan was quiet and reserved, methodical the polar opposite of Jazz, but they filled in holes in each others personalities and skills like they'd been designed together. They'd cross trained each other in some of their primary skills, Jazz as pilot and Scan as short term infiltrator, and even in ops it rare to find mechs who do can learn to do that many things well. The Riders always got the most dangerous missions, high chance of death low chance of success; they always pulled it off, except this time."

Mirage took a swallow of his energon and swept the room with his optics, time to see who had strong manifolds.

"The mission was simple, by their standards. Some small time crime boss was supplying the 'con with a high powered personal rocket system, the supply chain had been traced back to some nameless station in the middle of the Shattered Spark nebula. A good place to hide really, you can't take the heavies of fleet in there and even for the mid size ships it's difficult to manoeuvre in all the debris and the solar winds from all those new stars just adds to the problem. So the high ups decided to send in the Riders, gave them a couple of scout class hulls, the run of the armoury and told them to, and I quote Jazz, 'Have Fun'."

Ironhide and Trailbreaker were nodding at his summary of the situation, experience and knowledge filling in the gaps in what he'd said. Trailbreaker narrowed his optics in thought and then offered his own take on the tactical situation.

"It would make more sense to have multiple stations floating in different bits of the nebula. They'd be harder to pin point due to multiple entry and exit points and you'd have more eyes looking out. Plus an attack on one would alert the others."

Mirage dipped his head and spread his hands wide in a gesture of agreement.

"Sound advice Trailbreaker and advice the guy in charge had obviously listened to because that's what the found when they got there. Three stations, two at opposite edges of the cloud, each one in close orbit of a binary star, hiding in the glare and the sensor havoc that you get around binaries, and the other one buried deep in the densest part of the nebula. So they split to three teams, Sync and TickTick took one of the outlying stations, Boom and Rib got the other one, which left Jazz, Scan and Shrike with the middle."

"Umm, two ships and three teams? And who?" Track asked.

"Sorry the rest of the Riders, Sync is the commander and scout, TickTick is their sniper, Boom, and I'm not sure if that's his real name of just a nickname that everyone's used so much they can't remember his real one, is the demolitions expert, Rib covers communications a real cold glitch that one and Shrike's the medic. And yeah the whole two ship thing, remember I said Jazz was an excitement junkie? Well they decided that the easiest way to get to the middle station was to free fall,"

At the astonished faces of his companions he laughed, a real free happy laugh, and Primus it felt good.

"Yes, they really did step into the void and with a little assistance from compressed air tanks fell towards the station with out a hull for protection. Plan was to slip in through a vent, find a hull to get out in, blow the place to the pit and run for it. They got there fine a few close calls with meteors and bits of ship debris but nothing serious, slid down a defunct heat exchanger stack and they were in."

A snort escaped him, Jazz's version of the story had been longer and full of personal details and lots and lots of hand waving. A personal and private confidence for him alone, he would outline the bare bones of the story but keep his silent and unspoken promise not to tell the painful details, Jazz had gifted him with his unshakable trust in revealing so much of himself and he would not betray that trust now that Jazz was dead.

"All too easy, then it started to go wrong, the only hull they could find was a old escape pod which even Scan didn't think he could salvage. Jazz took a look round and discovered that this was the place where they made the fuel and explosive heads for the rocket system. In short they were trying to blow up a munitions factory and it turned out the reason it had been so easy to get in was that both fuel and explosives were made by blending, which made them inherently unstable until the process was finished, so the place was practically deserted, no ships in dock and only a few guards and scientist to man the place. Anyway Scan managed to patch the pod enough that they could use it to get out before the place disintegrated around them, and Jazz rigged some cocktails under the blending vats."

Sideswipe flashed a questioning look his way at that and he belatedly realised that just because he'd drafted them into the ops department it didn't mean they knew all the terms.

"An incendiary mix of explosives and liquid burn, the Autobot equivalent of napalm just much hotter and it sticks on contact. A little goes a very long way, in normal use you cut it with water or a light fuel to make it spread further and to take the temperature down to something you can survive if you get caught in it. The plan was to wait for the signal the others were ready, remote trigger the explosives in the mix, and eject the pod into space and hope to the pit it held together long enough for the to ride out the explosion. If Jazz had stuck to sop for making cocktails things may have been very different, but on a trip through the base he came across a couple of crates of magnesium flares, and decided to add them to the packages under the vats for added punch. They were all set and that's when things went snafu in a big way."

He took a long swallow of his energon and though furiously, when Jazz had been telling him this they'd both been all most permanently over energised from the quantity and quality of stuff they'd taken down, but this part of the story. He ruthlessly suppressed a shudder even now all this time later he tried to avoid thinking about what Jazz had told him, sufficient to say that when it was over he had been stone cold sober.

"One of the guards was brighter than average, a Krevok called Higg Maldor, he'd spotted something under on of the vats taken a look, played about with the detonators and then gone looking for the person responsible. He found them just as they got the signal to go from the other teams, Jazz hit the detonation switch and nothing happened, Maldor had brought the rest of the guards with him and they got into a fire fight, the pod was the first victim, a couple of rocket rounds reduced it to scrap, Jazz and co were pinned well and truly. Then a rocket went wide and punched right through into the next compartment, were Jazz had set up the rest of the explosives and flares, so that when they caught it would blow the outer sections of the station. Unfortunately Scan had stacked the last couple of crates of burn in there and the whole lot went up like a nova and set off the packages under the vats on the upper floors, the whole station practically ripped itself apart. Shrike was thrown clear by the explosion but Jazz and Scan got caught in the spray of burn and shards of magnesium," he closed his optics and swallowed convulsively "the temperature was off the scale, hot enough to, …. weld …., Jazz and Scan together."

Ratchet twisted his face in horror at the images that brought to mind, the rest were not in a better shape at the idea of being welded alive to someone else. Bee held his professional calm but Mirage could see he was swallowing rapidly. After a few moments of silence he continued.

"When Jazz came back on line it was six months later. The rest of the Riders had pulled him and Scan out of the wreckage, but Scan was to badly damaged he didn't make it and they'd had to practically rebuild Jazz from the spark chamber up. It took him a long time to recover from that mission, and during that recover he found that he'd begun to question what he was doing and why. In the end to regret on both sides he and the Riders parted ways and he signed up with Prime, figuring that there was small chance of any thing too questionable happening in Primes unit. About a century later the Riders ran into Maldor again and Shrike tagged him as the reason Scan died, he got away then but they vowed revenge on him for what he'd done."

"But it was millions of years ago, how come this guys still around?"

Bluestreak asked puzzled, Mirage noted with approval that the young gunners association with Prowl was paying off; he was asking good questions. He'd wondered the same thing and done a lot of digging to find the answers to the same question when Maldors name had come up.

"Mind transfer, he's Krevokian which means a long life span and weak mental powers. Nothing for us to worry about but every so often he has a clone of his body grown and then transfers his personality, memory and thought patterns into the blank mind of the clone. Apparently that's a taboo thing on his home world, which is why he's wanted there, dead or alive. Over the years he's grown into a substantial underworld power, one which you can bet the Riders have done their best to damage as much as they can."

He got up and began to pace, the next bit was making him nervous. The twins were a volatile mix at the best of times, and Ironhide had some very fixed ideas about loyalty and the sanctity of friendship but they had to know.

"Ok so now we know about the far past, how relevant is it to what the slags just happened?"

Hound demanded.

"Jazz fell in with Sync a while back, during his exile. What transpired I don't know but it's likely he persuaded Jazz to join him and the rest of the riders in going after Maldor. Settling the debt permanently,"

He shook his head ruefully his face grim.

"Thing is it looks like they've all jumped the line, gone rogue. I've found what I think are all of them working for Maldor; appears Sync set Jazz up for a fall. Prime and Prowl were just collateral, which is why Shrike didn't touch them."

The sound of nine suddenly outraged Autobots rising to their feet at the same time filled the room, and Mirage swung round to face them. The twins were vibrating with pent up anger and the need to work it out, Ironhide was still, no movement at all but the look in his optics. Trailbreaker was clenching and releasing his fists his usually placid face drawn back into a mask of fury, Hound had curled his hands into claws which he was obviously imagining wrapped securely round a certain 'bots neck.

"Stand Down."

Mirage put all his authority as an officer into that command; they needed to be calm for this they had to understand the plan or they might just loose someone. He locked optics with each one in turn and slowly they settled back into their chairs.

"Listen carefully this is the plan."

_---- Four hours later, opposite Maldor's headquarters on Keitel---_

Mirage stood in the entrance to the backstreet with Sideswipe so close behind that the red twin was practically in his armour with him; both the twins were bouncing on their feet with the excitement of actually doing some damage to those who had killed Jazz. The guards on the other side of the street were oblivious to their presence, which was just what Mirage wanted right now.

"We've lost Bee!"

A worried Hound whispered into Ironhide's audio, Mirage shook his head and pointed a finger to the top of the building; following it they saw Bee disappearing over the lip of the roof.

"He just popped upstairs for a better shot."

Mirage spoke quietly to the group clustered behind him. He began to let tears flow from his optics then curled a hand round Sideswipes wrist, receiving a questioning look he gave a predatory grin which widened at the flash of fear in the red twins optics.

"Sorry Sideswipe, you're not really my type but they," he jerked his chin at the guards "need to be distracted. Make it look real."

Without further instructions or warning he swung Sideswipe staggering out it to the street and then when the red mech had regained a little of his balance went storming out after him, screaming at the top of his voice.

"Don't touch me! I saw you with that yellow whore yesterday!"

"Uh?"

Sideswipe managed to stutter backing away down the street as Mirage stalked towards him.

"You promised me you were mine! That there would never be anyone else! And then I see you with that walking slag heap, bold as titanium, in front of everybody."

The blue and white yelled, wounded betrayal rolling of him in waves, tears pouring down his face, Sideswipe caught on and held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"I wasn't with him, he just came up behind me and I was trying to get rid of him but he wouldn't go and, it was a mistake and I do love you and you are the only one and, and"

He looked at Mirage in the cute innocent routine he and his brother had perfected over the years hoping to the pit he was being convincing. The sound of two bodies hitting the dirt caused Mirage to stop the flow of tears and abandon the betrayed lover act, he nodded a thank you at Sideswipe and walked over to inspect the bodies as a gentle thump at the entrance to the alley cause the other members of the party to spin round in concern.

"Just your friendly neighbourhood sniper."

Bee said calmly, as he walked over to join Mirage by the door. After a few minuets of discussion Bee came back to the mouth of the alleyway pulled out his gun and sighted on the door, Mirage beckoned Sideswipe to go and stand on the other side of the door and called over his shoulder.

"Bluestreak, I'm going to open this door, when I do if anything inside so much as twitches, hit it."

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A/N Well real life just went and dumped on me in the biggest way possible today, so I'm going to be unable to post for most if not all of next week due to lack of internet access. Writing will still be happening but it's not going to be getting any further than my laptops hard drive, as soon as I can I will put up the next chapter, cross my spark and hope to rust!


	11. Autobots are go!

A/N: Sorry if this one seams a bit all over the place but it was written in various hospitals and hospices and is dedicated to the memory of my father who died on 23rd September 2007.

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_---- Bluestreak's POV ----_

As Mirage turns back to the lock I move past Tracks and fall into a targeting stance on the opposite side of the alley from Bee, the minute shift in his position tells me he has noticed me and adjusted his targeting accordingly, the professional courtesy of one marksman to another, making a mental note to ask him to shoot with me when we get back I focus on the door. With practised ease I blot out the rest of the world from my conscious mind trusting my comrades to keep my back, every detail of the slab of metal becomes clear, the dents and scratches that will make it wobble almost imperceptibly as it opens, the places where the metal is thinner making it vulnerable to a heaver round. I select a mid weight round and slide the silencers into place, no sense in drawing more attention than necessary to ourselves, the click of gears and pistons' engaging makes me pull back the trigger to the limit of it slack, if there is anyone on the other side they aren't going to get a chance to sound an alarm.

The rattle of the door as it moves along its track sounds as loud as gunfire and the soft wave of air that rolls out in its wake feels as cold as liquid nitrogen, the fingers of a pale humanoid are revealed as the door moves past the halfway point followed by the shoulder a second later, Bee shifts his barrel up to where the head should be as I make a projection of where a mid chest shot should go and as the door clears enough of him for us to take the shots our trigger fingers twitch in unison and the target goes down in a spray of blood and bone fragments, he was more slender and fragile than any of the other humanoids we've been avoiding and the heavy rounds have made him a unrecognisable mess on the floor of the corridor.

_---- Sideswipe's POV ----_

The door finally slides fully open and Mirage and I leap through the space ready to take on anyone lurking out of range of gunfire. Their gonna regret this, each and every person in this building who isn't a prisoner is gonna suffer for what was done to Jazz, and when we find that red plated ice glitch or that green armoured excuse of a pit spawn, well treaties, agreements and the moral rules are taking a very long hike, those two are gonna get what they gave Jazz. Fragg it, the corridor's empty expect for the bloody pulp that Blue and Bee made of the guy who was passing as it opened, a sound behind me tells me that Blue has taken up a crouched position in the doorway behind me, ready to provide covering fire. A second later Sunny and 'Hide are jumping the mess and splitting up as per plan, Sunny with Mirage and 'Hide with me, Ratchet, 'Breaker and Hound round out my team and we move off at a dead run with Blue covering our afts, speed is essential here, we need to get to Prime and Prowl before any one realises what the pit's going on and decides to put them out of the way permanently. We're all keeping a low profile, no radio contact, no noisy brawls just silence and speed, Mirage had dug up some plans for this place from somewhere and pinpointed a location close to the cell where we can take Prime and Prowl to treat them before we regroup into one unit and start working out vengeance for real, and I can't wait for it to start.

_---- Tracks' POV ----_

I'm beginning to get very worried about this whole mission; this is the third guard post we've come across where the guards are already dead. Someone's been here before us, doing a very similar thing taking out key points and people as silently as possible, Bumblebee and Mirage were jumping at the first one we found now, as they crouch over the body of a unnamed transformer who's been stabbed in the pump, they're throwing theories around and none of them sound healthy. As the smaller group and more importantly the group containing Wheeljack our mission is to cut power and disrupt internal communications so the other team can get Prime and Prowl to safety before as many of us as possible tear this place apart looking for a green traitor and a red torturer. What the … slag it, whoever's been killing guards has just made it to the main power plant and put it out, I hate fighting in the dark it's messy and the possibility of hitting a friend is much higher, especially as with the strict radio silence we're keeping we have no idea where the other team is. Sunstreaker and I find we've instinctively taken up fighting stances back to back optics switched to infrared, he's bouncing slightly on the front of his feet the need to work out his grief and anger rolls off him in waves, if truth be known I could do with something to fight, any thing to occupy my processor with something other than the sound of a small blade slowly slicing open the seams of Jazz's armour.

_----Bumblebee's POV ----_

A neat three inch wide stab wound, directly through the pump from the front shattering it instantly, a clean cut severing all the main arteries and windpipe, done from behind and so quickly that the guard didn't know what happened, and the one with two vital neck vertebra snapped cleanly. All three deaths the work of a professional, someone used to killing quickly and quietly, and none of it reassuring for us. Whoever has come down this way is going to be a force to be reckoned with when we meet, and then there are the questions of who, what and whose side their on. As the lights go out I spot some blue liquid on the floor, energon, and not from the guard his chest plate is clean and it's too far from the pool collecting under him, Mirage is looking at it as well so I start up a very thin tight radio link between us.

//Energon, our mystery target is a transformer.//

//Not good, it's obviously a professional in our game. Possible a saboteur, we could be looking at another team in here also going after the Riders.//

Not a nice though that, too many variables to calculate. Oh well, time to do what all ops bots do best: improvise.

//Messy, change of plan?//

//Yes, seek, locate and hopefully talk with. We might just be able to take all the Riders with more help.//

//Our other team? We need to keep radio silence even more now, do we let them carry on without knowing there could be another pro team out there?//

//No choice. Whoever they are it looks like their ahead of us, Prime or Prowl should be able to speak for our team if they meet up.//

//Truth, move on?//

//Yes//

Rising to my feet I let the others pass by me, Mirage at point then Sunstreaker, Wheeljack in the middle and Tracks at the back, this whole set up is reminding me more and more of one of Jazz's favourite training setups. The one we always called Murphy's kingdom, because if it anything could go wrong it would, and occasionally even Jazz didn't make it out of the setup alive, we had fun pulling those ones apart. Focus slag it! Time for memories when we're getting well and truly hammered at the memorial party, right now concentrate on staying alive and finishing the mission.

_---- Prime's POV ----_

Prowl's off line again and I'm thankful for it, he's said nothing after making that vow and I'm a long way over the worry event horizon were he's concerned. Our captors appear to have forgotten about us, and for that I thank Primus, I doubt either of us would be able to stand up to that level of questioning for very long, the down side is that the longer they leave us here with out fuel the weaker we're going to be when our chance at freedom comes and that could mean 'shot while trying to escape' not the way I particularly want to go. And frankly Prowl's not going to want to escape, while I'm honest enough in my own head to admit that I want revenge for Jazz I am willing to wait for a good opportunity before taking it, Prowl though has, finally, taken Jazz's frequent requests to act and not think literally, and I pity any life form that comes between him and his objective.

Odd, the force field that comprises my cell within a cell has started to flicker, almost as if it's loosing power, and it's not the normal time for the lights to go out, I make it mid morning local time. The sounds drifting from the other side of the door indicate that the occupants of the base don't know what's going on either, power failure or a rescue attempt and if so by who and why? Slag it, this could be freedom now or never, time to see how well the chains alone will hold me.

Not at all, true the cuffs and a few links are still there but they aren't going to hinder too much, now the hard part, Primus please give me back a sane and rational Prowl, just for a few hours.

"Prowl"

His optics snap on, glowing blue for a few seconds and then turning green as he switches his vision to cope with the lack of light, and it looks like Primus granted my prayer because he's looking around assessing the situation and the familiar look of concentration as he brings it all together has etched itself across his face. I take hold of the chains that fasten him to the wall and snap them as easily as I had my own, I have to suppress a wince as I run a scanner over his door wings and find that he's pulled both of them almost out of their sockets, there are also deep cuts from the chains down both panels.

"A power failure, from the sound of it not a natural one. It could possible be a rescue mission or a coup d'état. We need to get out of this room; in here we have no way of knowing for sure what's going on, or which side any given person is on. I suggest concealment as the best strategy at the moment."

Wise advice, I'm just about to ask if he has any ideas on how we get out of the base when a shot sounds outside the door and then a body hits the door and slides down it. The following silence is broken by someone fiddling with the lock for a few moments before a muffled argument brakes out. Prowl leaps for the space under the slab and I press myself up against the far side of pillar

BOOM!

The door is blasted inwards off its track and falls with a clatter down the steps onto the floor followed immediately by two bodies jumping down the stairs into the room, from the sound of the impact two large, heavy bodies. I don't dare move or even scan in case I give my position away, if ever you needed proof that I'm not cut out for the life of a special ops agent this is it.

"Anyone home?"

And suddenly the tension, fear and uncertainty that have clouded my CPU for what feels like eternity are blown away by the sound of Sideswipe's voice in the dark.


	12. The game's afoot

A/N Credit to Toshi A.K.A The Laughing Platypus for Sync's code name, it comes from her story Ying and Yang, which I'm hoping she'll update soon :) _hint, hint_.

x

x

Sideswipe spun round at the sound of someone moving to his left tensing up for a fight, he relaxed all most immediately as the towering form of Optimus Prime emerged from behind a pillar in one corner of the room. Ironhide aimed his gun at the sound of scuffling emanating from the middle of the room; a pair of green optics staring at him heralded Prowl's appearance from under the slab Jazz had died on so he lowered the gun and gave the tactician a hand to his feet.

A commotion at the doorway had the four of them looking up as Ratchet came running down the stairs followed by Bluestreak who stopped halfway down spun round and sighted on the door, Trailbreaker and Hound charged through putting up a force field and covering hologram as they came down the stairs stopping behind Bluestreak. The sound of two pairs of feet running past the hole were the door had been answered all questions, one of the runners slowed at the fake door and slapped something where the lock should have been before moving on, the footsteps weren't out of range when a small explosion registered on Trailbreakers force field.

"I think I'm going to tender my resignation from special ops to Mirage when we get back, I'm too old to cope with a life that changes ends this fast."

Ironhide grumbled staring up at the doorway, Prime and Prowl stared at him optics glowing wide in the darkness.

"When did you sign up with the special ops department?"

Prime asked incredulously.

"We all got drafted, every one, like really every one, Mirage and Bumblebee insisted."

Bluestreak replied still focusing on the hole behind the fake door, Ratchet, who'd been scanning Prime and Prowl let out an angry hiss.

"What the slag happened to your doors? As far as we saw they didn't lay a finger on either of you after chaining you to the walls."

He found himself the object of two intense horrified stares, as Prime and Prowl snapped their heads round to look at him.

"As far as you saw." Prowl asked a sharp tight edge to his voice "Just how did you see any of it?"

Trailbreaker answered hesitantly from the top of the stairs where he had extended his force field outwards into the corridor in preparation for checking if the way was clear for them to move out.

"Someone taped it all and then broadcast it on a pirate station. Red found it in the data stream and Ratchet found him after he'd seen it and then we saw it," a collective shudder ran through the team, "and somehow we all ended up in special ops and the six of us plus Mirage, Bumblebee, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack and Tracks are here. Extracting you two is a primary goal and"

He tailed of at the fire that had flared into life in Prowl's optics, Sideswipe took an instinctive step backwards swallowing convulsively leaving Ironhide to finish the necessarily abbreviated briefing.

"Recovering Jazz for burial is a primary goal as is finding and 'eliminating' those responsible. The others are knocking out the power and scrambling control systems to make it all easier; we're to get you two out of this hole and to a safer hole for medical treatment and rendezvous with the rest there. After that, to quote Mirage "the entire pit gets turned loose.""

"That cold sparked, red plated whore of an ice glitch is mine."

Hound flinched at the cold dead tone of Prowl's voice, deep in the back of his CPU he began to worry that this mess had cost them two of the finest officers and gentlebots he'd ever known, Ratchet snorted and said.

"Not until I've fixed those door wings she isn't. This hole is giving me the shivers are we clear to move Trailbreaker?"

"Yes, but the emergency lights are on out here and that's not supposed to happen yet. I think something's gone wrong with the other team's mission."

"Well we can just contact them to find out, let's get to the safe hole and wait as per plan. Ratchet can fix Prowl's wings and anything else that needs doing, while we wait and then we can figure out how to get him in finger range of his target."

Sideswipe said climbing the stairs to stand beside Trailbreaker in the dimly lit corridor, beckoning the others to come up and join him.

_---- The power generator control room, the same time. ----_

The sharp bitter smell of high explosive overlaid by the acrid smell of burning plastic floated down the corridor silently announcing to Mirage and Bee that it was no use in going into whatever was left of the main control room; instead they detoured to the auxiliary control room only to find that the door had been melted shut. Bee stood back from examining it a look of frustration and concern on his face.

"Liquid burn sprayed on and ignited, probably by a low power laser shot. Definitely the work of a professional saboteur, they used just enough to melt the metal and not enough to start a general fire. It must have been sometime ago as well, the metal's cold to the touch. I'd hazard this was done before they blew up the main room, who ever they are they're long gone."

Mirage's face bore a twisted up smile and narrowed optics at this, he half suppressed a sigh and said.

"Welcome to the kingdom of Murphy. We can't do anything here, fall back to the safe hole and let's hope the others have had more success than us."

Sunstreaker and Tracks took up point as the group moved down one of the dimly lit corridors, Mirage and Bee deliberately hanging back so they could converse without being overheard.

"I don't like it Bee, if he wasn't dead I'd put good credits on our saboteur being Jazz. It has his marks all over it, speed, silence and skill. Look at those deaths, not one of them knew what was happening until it was all over, and what about the route; we picked it for the lack of guard posts and cameras, it's not the fastest or easiest way down here, but it does offer the least possibilities of detection even for a semi skilled team."

"But Jazz was a pro and one of the best pro's out there, why would he come this way?"

"If he had more need to evade notice than for speed."

"But to trade speed for secrecy, that could mean that who ever they are have been here long enough to set lots of things in place really deep."

"Exactly and that's another thing bothering me, no alarms have gone off, the switch over to emergency generators should have had bells and whistles going off everywhere, have you heard one?"

"No, someone's done a lot of careful work in disabling them. Please tell me you found evidence of a second pro team here."

"No not a single shred and I went looking, long and hard. The only other thing I can think of is that we've got caught in the middle of a coup, until we know for certain best stick to the original plan. Regroup, find Jazz's body, or as much of it as possible, go after our three targets, causing as much havoc as we can in the process, and then get out of here."

In silent agreement they caught up with the back of the group, but the unshakable conviction that they were missing some very important pieces of the puzzle was growing at the back of their processors.

_---- Elsewhere ----_

"Hold still, I can't do this if you keep squirming about."

"Easy for you to say, it's not your face plates under the welding iron."

"It wouldn't be yours either if you'd taken that shot rather than going for the hands on approach. There, that'll hold for now."

"Good," a slender much patched figure walked over to a console and began typing "yes, ok, ah here we are. Pay dirt, every thing we need to nail the glitch, any contact with the others?"

"None since 'Cast confirmed outside communications were jammed. If all's still going to plan 'Sin and Dev should be just about finished setting up downstairs."

"I'll be done in a couple of seconds, where we meeting the old man?"

"The servants' alcove outside the private quarters, he's made sure that the target thinks this is a coup and convinced him to hole up in his bunker."

A feral grin split the dark face plates, and a gleam of anticipation shone in the unusually coloured optics. A hint of disappointment coloured the expressive voice as a thought occurred to the speaker.

"A sitting target, in the end perhaps it's all too easy."

The mech at the console shot a reproving look over a shoulder at the speaker.

"How many missions have you been on? Remember it's not over till the big femme sings."

"Well I think I can hear her warming up, you done here?"

"Yep," a data storage chip was carefully removed and stored in a secure subspace pocket "time to set our virus to work."

A few minuets later two figures stepped out of the security office as if they had every right to have been in there, closed and locked the door behind them and strode purposely in the direction of the upper floors.

_---- The upper loading bay. ----_

The last mech in the group of heavies they had encountered fell silently, sliced cleanly in two by a stroke from Mirage's sword. Straightening up he checked the area, two other bodies lay on the floor further out in the bay, victims of Bee's gun skills, Tracks and Sunstreaker had accounted for another pair who'd been closer to the door when they had burst through. Seeing no other obstacles Mirage walked quietly walked over to a rusty door panel half concealed by storage racks and rapped a complex rhythm on it. The door was promptly opened from inside by Ironhide, Mirage raised an optic ridge and looked faintly accusingly at the mechs inside, Sideswipe spread his hands innocently and said.

"Trailbreakers got the door covered by a field, Bluestreak hasn't moved from his covering fire position in the rafters since we got here and Ratchet scanned who it was at the door before we opened it. And shouldn't you be getting inside fast in case anyone walks in and finds us?" He gave an unrepentant grin and asked "Are we paranoid enough for you?"

Mirage raised his optic skywards as if imploring help from a passing deity and slipped into the room followed by the rest of his team. Prime looked round at the entering mechs and tried to reconcile the quiet, reserved, genteel mech he knew as Mirage with the hard, cold, competent special agent who was leading this mission, he had to try even harder with Bumblebee who came in last, gun still trained on the bay, covering the others backs. There was no trace of the happy, young, innocent mech in this expert sniper, he belatedly remembered that Jazz had recommended both of them as the best 'bots for the job when he'd been setting up this unit, which given Jazz's standards spoke volumes about their abilities' and competencies'.

Mirage was looking back at him with an assessing gaze, tallying up the scrapes on his armour looking for other injuries and judging his physical and mental strength, he thought he'd past inspection when Mirage gave him a small smile and a smaller nod before switching his attention to Prowl. The sight of the Datsuns' door wings made him narrow his optics and ask.

"Self inflicted whilst trying to escape or do we have another target for elimination?"

"No, I did this trying to get loose when they, she"

A rough scratchy noise escaped Prowl's vocaliser and a single tear ran down his face, Mirage laid a hand gently on Prowl's shoulder and his voice filled with absolute certainty reassured the distressed mech.

"We'll take Jazz home for burial with full honours and you'll get your chance to make his killer pay with her life."

Mirage walked over to a small sealed data interface port on the wall and began dismantling it plugging in a small highly modified data pad, typing rapidly he brought up a complete schematic of the building. A room adjacent to the repair bay was highlighted blue, two locator dots one red and one green glowed moving along a corridor leading to the living quarters and a third black dot was stationary in the room labelled command bunker.

"OK, time for phase two. Ratchet, Wheeljack the blue room is where you'll find Jazz's body, memorise the route, walk in like you own the place, recover him and get back to our entry point. All this confusion caused by what ever we've landed in the middle of should give you perfect cover, try not to draw to much attention to yourselves but don't hesitate to take out anyone who gets in your way."

They nodded and Ratchet began to pack away the tools he'd been using, Mirage continued.

"The red dot is Shrike, the green one Sync I've rigged this pad to continually transmit this schematic on a high tight band, everyone check they can receive it."

A round of nods and tight smiles greeted this announcement.

"I suggest you go for take down shots, not kill,"

A disapproving noise issued from the others filling the room, Mirage gave a disturbing smile which silenced them.

"Revenge they say is a dish best served cold, and do you really want to run the risk of being discovered and forced to rush things?"

An uncomfortable silence fell with everyone avoiding everyone else optics, Bee flicked a glance at Prime and could see that his desire to have revenge was warring with his principals, that would be an interesting battle to watch.

"Who's the black one?" Bluestreak asked

"Maldor," Prime and Prowl shot Mirage a questioning look "the guy in charge of this whole thing. Bee and I are going after him while you take care of the other two, tag and bag the targets then extract yourselves with as much devastation as you can. Text communication only on the same channel as the pad is safe, report when you've achieved your primary objective or if you get really stuck."

Mirage stood by the door scanning the bay beyond, finding it empty he opened the door stepped through and vanished, Bee followed him and melted into the shadows, Ratchet and Wheeljack walked boldly out into the main corridor heading for the room where Jazz's body was. Splitting into pairs to be less conspicuous the others slipped out into the increasingly frantic traffic in the corridors.

A pair of amber optics watched them intently from their owners chair on the bridge of a sleek modified Amphion class scout ship.

_All we need right now, a bunch of semi skilled amateurs blundering about putting planet sized holes in our plans._ The sound of air being expelled through cooling vents echoed round the empty room, _oh well time to tell the others that the pit just opened on us._

//Broadcast to all Riders, Terra just crashed the party. I'm reading a high frequency transmission looks like they got a patch on Battle Axe and Pain.//

//Slag it! Devastator, Assassin run level two interference, Broadcast get everything ready for us to evac glitching fast.//

//You got it.//

//All over it.//

//Sanctuary coming online now.//

"If they catch you two, you'll be lucky if you're killed outright."

"Big if there, get that lock open and let's get this over with before they get up here."


	13. Fire in the hole!

A/N: I should call this the chapter that wouldn't play ball the trouble it's given me, it's also a lot longer than any of the others but I couldn't find a good place to break it up. Sorry.

Tomorrow4eva: I think the formatting has woken up and realised it got drafted into the special ops dept as well, please let me know what you think.

Laughing Platypus: The idea you gave me is going to work out just fine, but it has created a whole new chapter (or two!) _Wicked, sly twin worthy grin._

x

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_---- The repair bay thirty five minuets later ----_

Ratchet emerged from one of the surgical rooms a disgruntled look on his face, he and Wheeljack had searched every room in the repair bay and there was no sign of Jazz, not even any recognisable parts in any of the bins. Prowl and Prime had been adamant that Shrike had taken Jazz's corpse away to see if she could extract any data from the charred and damaged remains of his memory banks, a task, Ratchet knew from his pre war forensic work with the security forces, that could take days of careful painstaking work.

"Nothing in this one either 'Jack, had any luck in that parts rack?" Ratchet yelled.

The engineer had disappeared into a large storage area at the back of the bay.

"No, however I also can't find any evidence of smelters out the back here so I don't think they melted him down." Wheeljack responded.

As Ratchet silently gave thanks to Primus for that, there was a crash from the room Wheeljack was searching.

"Ratchet, I think I've found where they took him!" Wheeljack cried out, excitement colouring his voice.

Ratchet strode into the room and spotted a gaping hole in the wall from which the sound of someone moving about floated into the larger room.

"Primus, this isn't just a storage room for bodies and bits it's a whole repair bay, and it's better equipped than the one out there." Wheeljack called out from the other side of the wall.

Looking round the medic had to agree, the pentagonal room although tiny, with only one med bunk and just enough space for him and 'Jack to move around in, contained equipment of a calibre he'd be proud to have in his bay. Neatly arranged on a table to the side were stacks of twisted panels and burned circuits a bin to one side contained shattered gears and the one next to it empty containers which bore medical labels for transfusion suitable energon, coolant, lubricants and tubes of medical grade liquid plastic. In short it bore more than a passing resemblance to any bunk which he'd used to fix either of the twins after a bad fight; he looked closely at the panels and saw that the little paint that remained was clearly the black and white scheme Jazz favoured.

The room just wasn't large enough to hide a body the size of Jazz so if he had been here he wasn't now, frowning Ratchet scanned the room looking for any clue as to where they could go from here. Running his optics over the bunk he saw the shattered remains of Jazz's visor neatly laid out as if for reassembly, and under them a piece of paper with something written on it. Carefully, reverently he moved each shard of the visor off the paper; removing the last one he turned the paper over, the words were written in a shaky but vaguely familiar hand.

"There are worse things in life than death." Ratchet read aloud "Have you ever spent an evening with Starscream?"

Wheeljack sniggered and Ratchet couldn't suppress a smile, back on Cybertron Jazz had once spent several weeks pretending to be a Decepticon in Starscream's unit, it had been after that mission that the seeker had universally become known by the nickname Screamer; Jazz had coined it saying that there simply wasn't a more accurate name for the jet.

Wheeljack placed a hand over his spark casing and replied with overdone thankfulness "We, fortunately, have been spared that experience so far," he let the hand fall and continued in a normal tone "and while we can say that the body was here it certainly isn't now."

Ratchet blew air through his vents, typical Jazz; nothing was ever simple or straight forward. Storing the note in a subspace pocket he and Wheeljack picked two of the three doors that led off the room and carried on looking.

_---- Three levels above the loading bay. ----_

Mirage cursed silently, who ever had trapped this service shaft had been very, very thorough. Trip wires, motions sensors, vibration detonators, heat sensitive contact acid and sonic bombs were just some of the devices making the quietest route to the command bunker much slower than it should be, Bee stifled an exclamation as the firing cap on the vibration charge he was disarming exploded scorching his fingers. They both froze waiting to see if the sound, heat and vibration would set off any of the other devices, softly exhaling when it became clear that none of the other devices had been triggered, they slowly, methodically resumed climbing and searching.

Ten minuets later they were staring at a laser grid which spanned the width of the duct, incendiaries were attached to its collar and the walls above were coated with a sticky iridescent paste. The sweet smell was unmistakable and struck fear into both sparks.

//Neat liquid burn, Bee I move we abandon the ducts and work our way up on the outside. I've no wish die like Scan, and there's no way would we survive that going up.// Mirage whispered over a tight radio line.

Bee's response was just a quiet //Gets my vote, it was a smart move on someone part. Trigger that and the flames will go both ways down the tube, setting off the devices below and what ever they set up above. Instant deep fried intruder, I passed a hatch a couple of feet down let me go check if it'll open with out triggering anything.//

Mirage stayed perfectly still and increased the energy to his cooling systems, acutely aware of every motion sensor and heat detector that surrounded him. This mission was turning into a series of 'how to die horrible' situations, the hiss of a inspection hatch opening was a blessed sound and Bee's assurance that they were clear to exit the duct dissipated a micron of the tension thrumming along Mirage's nerves. As he slid out of the duct Bee gently closed and locked the hatch behind him, and then they set off at a dead run, silent, hugging the shadows, using every shred of advice and training Jazz had given them.

_---- Various corridors between the loading bay and the command levels. ----_

Hound glanced at the mech beside him, a small frame painted a dull grey, or at least that's what everyone else saw, Hound, undeceived by his own hologram, clearly saw the tormented face of Optimus Prime.

"He was a good friend Prime," Hound began "and an honourable warrior, he deserved a kinder end."

The base rumble of Prime's voice had a raw edge to it "Yes, he did Hound." A rough hitch caught in Prime's vocaliser "All those crazy missions, so many long chances that he pulled off. A hundred thousand ways and places he could have died, gone out it a blaze of glory doing something worthwhile, not in such a shameful way and in such pain over nothing at all."

Hound was shocked to see a tear roll down Prime's face and under his battle mask, the vanguard of a thousand more. Grabbing Prime by the elbow Hound hauled him into the nearest deserted quarters, shutting the door as Prime slid down the wall and let his grief and pain bubble to the surface. Unable to think of anything to say Hound sat down beside his CO, offering him silent support in his grief.

_----_

Sideswipe checked the map being broadcast and jerked his head silently at his brother, as quietly as they had joined the group of guards scrambling to their posts they left. They were alone in one of the side corridors, lined with living spaces and meeting rooms, larger and more opulently furnished than the ones on the lower floors, the area reserved for those high up the organisation.

"Sunny, just how slow do you think Prime's going to let us be about killing Sync?" Sideswipe asked in a thoughtful tone,

Sunstreaker narrowed his optics and replied "Not as slow as I want to be, a couple of days, maybe. Three tops I should think, if he doesn't take a stand on his principals and just have both of them stood in front of the firing squad."

Both of them fell silent considering how to do the maximum amount of damage to their target in the minimum amount of time without killing him too quickly. Sunstreaker was lost in plans to borrow some of Wheeljack's more, _interesting_, corrosives, and seeing just how much it took to strip a mech of Syncs size of his armour, when his scanners picked up ten life forms both organic and robotic massing directly in their path and all of them well armed.

Grinning wickedly at his twin Sunstreaker asked in an innocent tone "'Don't hesitate to take out anyone who gets in your way'. Wasn't that what he said?"

His only answer was the sight of Sideswipe swapping hands for pile drivers, an unholy glow spreading through his optics, speeding up they rounded the corner at a dead run.

"That's them," a scratchy voice called out from the back of the group "Kill the traitors!"

Dodging laser fire and solid shot the twins waded into the group. Bone splintered and plates buckled under the impact of the twins' fury, the deck became slippery with blood and energon. A gap in the carnage gave Sideswipe a momentary glimpse of a slate grey mech kneeling behind the melee twisting dials on a small box, the mech looked up, caught Sideswipes optics, gave a cocky grin, pressed a button, got to his feet and fled down the hall. Before Sideswipe could process what he'd seen there was a dull roar and the corridor collapsed around them.

_----_

Tracks spiralled and jinked crazily in mid air crisscrossing what had been the mess hall, true you could still call it a mess hall but it was a mess of different sort now. Bodily fluids and torn up limbs lay in a thick carpet the length and breadth of the room, some one who knew a lot about covering fire had set up remote gun drones in every conceivable place and a few more in unconceivable places. Tracks and Bluestreak had entered the room hiding among the civilian staff for which the hall had been a refuge point, the firing had started when they had cleared any of the cover offered by the walls, in the stamped that followed the two Autobots had become separated. Tracks had taken to the air trying to draw the drone's fire to give the terrified crowd time to escape; Bluestreak had found cover in a corner behind a vending machine and started to pick off the drones one by one

With a satisfying shower of sparks the last drone exploded and silence returned to the slaughter house. Tracks blasted open one of the doors and swooped past the corner Bluestreak was hiding in, Bluestreak jumped and caught hold of his undercarriage and Tracks left the hall through the damaged doors. They were a long way down the corridor before either of them felt safe enough to set down on the deck; they stood for several minuets just staring back at the carnage, then wordlessly turned and walk on weapons held ready, optics scanning every inch of their surroundings and jumping at every sound.

_----_

Ironhide regarded the latest pile of collapsed corridor with circuit frying disgust, he, Trailbreaker and Prowl had found almost every route to their destination blocked off by collapsed walls and roof, or by rooms that had been turned into infernos. And to top it all the pad broadcasting their map was being jammed, Prowl had commented that it looked like they'd been spotted by unfriendly optics just before a section of the wall had come crashing down on top of them.

_Thank Primus for 'Breaker and his force field_ Ironhide mused, closely examining the latest road block, a thin trickle a blue running down a jagged roof tile caught his optics, _a mech got caught in this one, what's this? _He lent in close, picked up a shard of metal and felt his energon run cold; _only one mech I know carries that yellow colour,_ standing up he began to shift the rubble.

"It looks like we may have a trapped twin or two under here." Ironhide said gruffly.

As they dug through the pile he tried very hard to mask his fear that they'd lost more friends to this mess, a task that got harder as more and more energon stained pieces turned up followed by bit of body. Finally Trailbreaker called out that he had found them, scrambling over the remaining rubble Ironhide and Prowl began tossing sections of building aside in haste to reach the trapped mechs.

"OW! Watch were you're flinging that stuff, I've collected enough scrapes to my paint job as it is." Track peeved voice called out from behind them.

Bluestreak simply reached past a startled Prowl and started to pull away the remaining slabs trapping Sideswipe. It took another five minuets for them to free the twins, who emerged dented, scratched and covered in dust but otherwise undamaged. Sunstreaker groan and came back online slowly, every panel and joint ached ferociously.

"Anybody get the ident of the seeker who blew me up?" Sideswipe's voice quavered in his twin's audio as the red mech came back online.

"Seeker?!" the volume of seven mechs making the same startled exclamation cause him to wince in pain.

"Yeah" Sideswipe affirmed "Slate grey mech, weird folded in half wings, all angles has an ash grey cockpit. He was behind the maul setting up a delayed fuse."

"We have absolutely been spotted by unfriendly optics." Prowl muttered.

Ironhide and Trailbreaker helped the twins to their feet and they set off down a side corridor, in a blind search for their targets.

_----_

Prime staggered backwards under the force of the blast wave, optics offline and sensors scrambled, dimly he could hear Hound shouting but the words were lost in the noise of the explosion. Primus cursed seeker, what the pit had he thrown at them? Gradually his sensors unscrambled themselves and his optics cleared, showing him the face of a worried Trailbreaker.

"Sonic bomb," Tracks spoke up from where he was examining the blast marks "probably triggered at point blank range, it might have caught the mech who set it."

"No such luck, the glitch got clean away," Sideswipe answered reappearing round the corner.

Prime slowly got to his feet, his gyros complaining at the movement, _so much for low profile_ he though looking over the group before him, all of whom had obviously seen some form of action. He checked the frequency that the map had been on, more out of hope than any expectation and found to his amazement that it was back.

"I think we just got lucky," Prime announced to the group "The maps back online and both out targets are on the next floor up. Autobots roll out."

----

//Broadcast to Battle Axe, Devastator reports the Autobots one floor below your current position and moving upwards.//

The air in the bunker turned blue as the Riders commander received that piece of news, pale yellow optics narrowed at the two other bots in the room.

"Requiem how much longer?" Battle Axe snapped.

"Almost there" Requiem's much patched vocaliser wheezed "someone in the ATC tower's gonna get a nasty shock." A wide grin distorted the weld lines that made up most of his face.

Battle Axe patched himself into the radio frequency //Battle Axe to all Riders. Target acquired,// Requiem sat back from the console and gave him two thumbs up, Battle Axe continued //diversion installed, evac code blue. Devastator get ready to bring the house down//

//Boo-yah!// was Devastator's enthusiastic response.

Pain bent and picked up the bound and silent form of the reason for all this excitement and turned towards the exit, stopping abruptly at the sight that greeted her.

"He is mine" Mirage's voice was cold and unyielding as he gestured to the limp body in Pain's grip.

Bumblebee had the other two covered his optics as flat and hard as Mirage's voice, he didn't flinch when the other door to the room opened and Prime filled the space beyond the rest of the team slipping past him to confront the three mechs.

"Drop your weapons," Prime demanded "you're under arrest for treason, murder and being an accessory to both."

Pain and Battle Axe looked at Prime and then at Requiem, the latter shrugged swept a hand over his torso in a look at this gesture and grinned. Something about the movement caught Prowl's attention, it was so familiar but he just couldn't place were he'd seen it before.

Devastator's frantic transmission shattered the tension //Misfire! Misfire! All Riders evac code green!//

Pain narrowed her purple optics and demanded over the open line //What happened?//

//The Autobot with the mask and glow in the dark ears. He found one of the detonators and I swear he just looked at it and the whole lot triggered!// Devastator replied.

//What happened to the Wheeljack and Ratchet?// Requiem asked sharply.

//I yelled at them to get their afts in gear and follow me. We're headed for Sanctuary as fast as the medic's alt form can roll. ETA two minuets detonation in five max.// was Devastator's response.

Battle Axe looked Prime squarely in the optics and said "If we surrender to you now, will you follow us to safety, before the whole building comes down around our audios?"

Prime re-read the text message from Ratchet which confirmed the story and nodded once, Mirage, Bee and Hound moved to flank Pain as she moved towards the door, the twins and Ironhide took station around Battle Axe as Requiem fell in between Prime and Prowl with a slight bow and a wide grin. Following Battle Axe's instructions they ran through the maze of corridors, the sound of distance explosions caused Requiem's scarred face to rearrange itself into a lopsided smile his mismatched grey and red optics glowing with amusement.

"Wheeljack really has a knack for explosions doesn't he?" Requiem observed.

Prime and Prowl started at the comment and that feeling of something familiar about the mech, who looked like a collection of scavenged bits welded together, nagged at their CPU's.

Entering the loading bay they had regrouped in they saw a large scout ship its thruster's online, air cushion holding it just off the deck in preparation for take off. Mirage wondered how they could have missed it when they entered the bay the first time; the body panels were matt back overlaid with what looked like the skeleton of the ship painted in sliver, and outlined in flames. The engines and weapon mounts were bare polished metal; the name plate was energon blue with the name, Sanctuary, written in a paint that glistened disturbingly in the light, lying underneath the name was the flaming skeleton of a transformer.

They charged up the gangway and onto the bridge, Sideswipe baulked at the sight of the grey mech sitting at the engineering console, slate grey wings bent back at the mid point, sharply angled body and thin bronze optics, the mech who'd dropped the roof on him and his brother. The communication console was covered by a large brown mech who carried more antenna, satellite receivers and interface ports than any other mech Hound had ever seen, a small blue blur flew on to the bridge and threw itself at the weapons console. Short round fingers danced across the keys and the whine of pulse cannons powering up cut the air.

"Stand by," Assassin called out to Requiem who had taken up the pilot seat "we could get some recoil here."

"We're about to get the building come down on us." Devastator reported gaze fixed on the readings scrolling across his screen.

Several things happened at once, the pulse canons fired blowing the heavy bay doors into there component atoms and sending Sanctuary backwards a few feet, a roar echoed through the bay as support struts buckled and snapped causing ceiling slabs to fall around the ship, a cloud of dust a debris ripped through the thin inner doors of the bay pelting the hull with shards of metal and bricks causing Sanctuary to buck on its air cushion and finally the engines growled and propelled the ship forward through the rain of destruction out over the surrounding buildings and up into the atmosphere of Keitel, the violent rolling and pitching of the ship during these few minuets tossed any mech not strapped into a seat flying.

Ratchet crawled over to where Prowl and Mirage had come to rest, by the life support station where Pain sat clinging to the seat hard enough to dent the metal.

"We," Ratchet began hesitantly "we couldn't find Jazz's body, only a few panels and some busted gears. I'm sorry."

The red torture looked down at the three of them sharply, and then a small kindly smile crossed her face.

"Jazz's shell is safely in cryogenic storage in Sanctuary's med bay." Pain said softly compassion and respect colouring her voice "he was one of us, and we never leave one of our own behind."

Prowl snarled and gathered himself in preparation to spring up and tear the red mech apart when a heavy green hand clamped itself on his shoulder.

"You might want to hear the full story before you pass sentence tactician." Battle Axe said hauling Prowl to his feet "Everyone to the lounge, Requiem, join us when we're somewhere safe."

Ten very tense minuets later the door to the lounge opened and Requiem stepped in, he hid a grin at the sight that greeted him. The Riders were sat on one side of the lounge in order of rank with a gap left for Jazz and the Autobots were glowering at them from the other side of the room, he deliberately swaggered to a chair in between the two groups and sprawled in it.

"Well that lacked any style, grace or finesse but I've lost the security forces and found us a nice discrete place to hide." Requiem said brightly into the hostile silence.

Prowl had been watching him intently from the moment the door had revealed him, as he sprawled with utter abandon in his chair and spoke Prowl was hit by the horrible realisation of just who and what this patch job of a mech was. His face paled, optics going wide as his logic centre worked out just what had to have been going on, a disbelieving groan issued from his vocaliser. Requiem looked up at him; head cocked to one side a sad smile on his face.

"I told ya he'd be the one to put it together, ain't anyone faster at this kinda thing than Prowl." Requiem told a room full of confused mechs.

"Why?" Prowl whispered, optics locked on Requiem's pain, loss and betrayal clear in both body language and tone "why do this to us?"


	14. The tangled web

A/N: this one is mostly talking and no action, but it should tie a few plot threads together. It's also not been proofed because I'm trying to do twelve things at once so if you spot any glaring errors please let me know and when real life calms down I'll correct them.

x

x

Requiem looked down at his hands, unable to endure the pain on Prowl's face.

"Ya were never supposed to get mixed up in this, none of you." Requiem said quietly, air whistled through his intakes making a mournful sound, as he continued "The plan was for all this to happen out o' ya' sight. I'd have shown up with a few new dents and some more nightmares to start me out o' recharge and ya'd have been blissfully ignorant of why."

Prowl surged to his feet and stormed over to the chair Requiem slouched in, slammed one hand over one of Requiem's arms and grabbed his chin in the other forcing the other mech to look at him

"But _why_ go through it in the first place? For once just give me a straight answer Jazz!" Prowl demanded, anger now the dominate emotion in his voice.

Consternation rippled through the Autobot team, Hound and Ironhide looked at Prowl as if he'd blown his processor. Bluestreak was mouthing silent words optics unfocused in shock; Mirage and Bee were scowling deeply trying to follow the tactician's logic. Ratchet walked to Prowl's side and gently disengaged his hand from Requiem's face.

"Jazz is dead Prowl," Ratchet said compassionately, wrapping an arm around the other mech's shoulder and drawing him away from Requiem. "We saw him die; they have his shell in storage on board remember?"

Requiem closed his optics and let his head fall back against the chair, fluid running down his face. He brought his head up, guilt, regret and resignation written over the plates of his face, he looked Prowl in the optics.

"Because I owed an old friend a life," Requiem dropped his head to stare at the floor and finished "I know ya can't forgive me and I never expected ya to."

"Jazz?" Tracks asked "Are you really Jazz?"

"Yes" the affirmative came from both Pain and Requiem at the same time.

"He is Jazz," Pain continued "or rather an upload of his programming, memories, personality files and a physical transfer of his spark. The body is what ever scrap parts I could get to fit together well enough to function, it isn't going to win any design awards and it isn't going to hold out for much longer but it does allow him to fulfil his function in the team."

"I think you owe us the truth about this affair." Mirage's voice was neutral, no hint of his feeling could be detected and his face was closed.

Requiem gave a short bitter laugh "The truth? Do you trust us enough to believe it when we tell you?"

A deep and uncomfortable silence fell, Requiem sat hunched forward in his chair hands clasped together shoulders up head down. Battle Axe was slumped back in his chair, optics off a feeling of strut deep exhaustion emanating from him. Pain however still sat bolt upright in the hard wooden chair she had chosen, optics staring unseeing at the opposite wall, Prime had to repress a shudder, to him it looked as if she a prisoner awaiting interrogation. Assassin curled her knees up to her chest wrapped her arms round them and rested her chin on her knees optics, off line a bitter smile twisting her mouth. Devastator twisted and twitched on the couch he shared with Assassin, unable to keep still or to meet anyone's optics. Broadcast was gazing at each Autobot in turn, slowly assessing them keeping his own reactions and emotions from display.

Bluestreak suddenly rose to his feet and walked over to Requiem, his face screwed up into a mask of determination. Stopping before Requiem he dropped to his knees and took the other mechs hands in his, he could feel the minute shaking of Requiem's frame through the hands he clasped. After a few minuets Requiem looked up at the mech kneeling before him, Bluestreak's optics were clear and bright, his face determined.

"Yes Jazz. I do trust you. You've never betrayed us, any confidence any of us gave you never went any further. You've been the shoulder so many of us have lent on, the hand that pulled so many of us to our feet when we fell. You've always acted the outrageous clown to help us forget our sorrows, been the smile that reminds us that life isn't all dark, and the quiet strong rock of certainty when all the rest of us wavered and thought about giving up." Bluestreak paused to judge the impact his words were having and then continued, "Time for us to repay the favour and help you. You may not have deliberately involved us in this mess but we're here, and we, I, refuse to let you suffer the consequences of this alone."

The twins shared a swift glance and rose as one coming to a stop on either side of Requiem; he flinched as a yellow and a red hand settled firmly on his shoulders.

"Consider it payback for all the times you've hauled us back into line and knocked some sense into us when we'd gone way off the road." Sunstreaker declared firmly.

"And for all times you stood up for us when we've been accused of stuff we didn't do, and especially for all the times you've played peace broker between us." Sideswipe concluded.

"I thought I'd killed you, that you'd died because I hadn't done my job well enough," Prowl's voice was anguished "I just want to know why you did this to me, to us."

"It begins with a death." Broadcasts clipped tones startled everyone.

"'Cast! No please!" Requiem protested a panicked look on his face.

"They care too much about you to let it ride Requiem." Broadcast jabbed a finger at Prime and Prowl and continued "Those two came charging in without knowing what the pit was going on, no backup and almost certainly no plan." a sweeping gesture of his hand encompassed the rest of the Autobots "And they dropped everything, including protecting Earth and its people from the Decepticons, came a long way across the galaxy and risked getting caught up in our plans just to recover your body. He's right we do owe them the truth."

"If we're going to do this may I suggest starting with introductions?" Battle Axe asked resignedly, on lining an optic in Broadcasts direction.

Broadcast rewarded him with a smug grin and said broadly "By all means, be my guest."

The single optic turned into a full blown glare as Battle Axe hauled himself up in his chair; he kicked a chair towards Bluestreak who was still kneeling in front of Requiem.

"On your knees on the floor is very uncomfortable after a very short space of time kid." Battle Axe said gruffly, and then tapped himself on his chest "Sync known as Battle Axe, by the wrath of Primus commander of the Hell Riders and scout."

As he spoke lines began appearing on this armour, they resolved into the Autobot rank insignia on his right shoulder and the familiar squared of face of their faction symbol. On his chest plate, right over his spark chamber, in the same glistening colour as the name on the ships hull, the image of a burning transformer skeleton welding a large double headed half moon axe cleaved through unseen foes.

Pain's armour began to crawl with the same lines as she dipped her head and said "Shrike known as Pain, medic and interrogator." The burning transformer over her spark chamber dripped energon from its hands as it lent back against a cybertronian caduceus.

"Tick Tick known as Assassin, sniper and weapons specialist" Assassin said, shifting out of her curled up position and into a crossed leg pose, her icon was the same burning skeleton dressed in the robes of death one hand holding a rifle.

Devastator let the lines of rank, faction and personal icon, a burning skeleton surrounded by the burning ruins of buildings; fade into existence before saying "Boom known as Devastator, demolitions and explosives."

"Rib known as Broadcast, communications and system infiltration." Broadcast supplied, his icon was a seated burning skeleton surrounded by sound waves.

Under the combined gaze of the rest of the Riders Requiem slowly raised his head and said "Jazz known as Music Man, saboteur and pilot. But this form is known as Requiem."

"Mirage known as Figment, spy and hunter." Mirage declared giving both real and field name and specialisations.

Bee followed the same formal identifying formula "Bumblebee known as Sting, sniper and scout."

Mirage took up the introductions of the rest of the team, he lent back in his chair when he had finished and looked at Rib.

"It begins with a death." Mirage repeated "Scan's death by any chance?"

A soft hiss of air flowed from Shrike's vents as she said "Yes, it starts with Scan" her optics focused on Mirage and she asked "How much do you know? How much do they know?"

"You split into three teams, you, Jazz and Scan went after an arms factory, the mission went to the unmaker and the station blew up round you. Scan and Jazz were welded together by the explosion, Jazz survived but Scan didn't." Mirage replied.

Shrike nodded sharply and continued "What we actually retrieved was unrecognisable as a transformer; they'd both lost about ninety percent of body mass. By a miracle they were both still alive when we got them to a medical facility, I spent weeks trying to separate them enough to be able to transplant their sparks into holding forms. We were lucky to extract enough of Jazz from the mess to be able to rebuild him; I lost count of the times I nearly lost him on the table." Her optics went dark and her face turned hard and flat "Scan wasn't so lucky; his spark case had suffered heat and shock fractures, it shattered in my hands."

Ratchet closed his optics; he'd lost patients like that. An exposed spark stuttered and slowly faded, it was a long drawn out death, and once the process started nothing in the universe could stop it. As much as he hated the medic for what she'd done to Jazz he could sympathise with her pain at loosing a friend like that.

"Maldor was the one who fired the missile that set the whole thing off." Shrike concluded "He knew what he was doing, I heard him shout at the others to withdraw as he was going to blow the explosives in the next bay."

"He's been popping up here and there ever since," Sync took up the tale, "throwing spanners into our plans as much as he can. Always involved in nasty business, weapons smuggling, drugs running, people trafficking you name it he's done it."

Bluestreak, still kneeling before Requiem said softly "Mirage said you left them, after that mission."

"Yes," Requiem's voice was barely audible, despair, pain and guilt dripped from his voice "I, I couldn't get those last seconds out of my mind. The wall of heat rushing at me, the agony as my skin melted, the feel, smell and sound of my circuits burning it haunted me every second I was online and Scan's screams as he was caught in the blast drove me from recharge." He stopped, shuddering as silent tears rolled down his face.

Bluestreak strengthen his grip on Requiem's hands and moved closer to the distressed mech, Sideswipe dropped into a crouch beside him and wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders. Prowl gave a shudder of his own in Ratchet's arms, the screaming and calling out Jazz had done in his sleep before all this had gone to the pit suddenly had a much more terrible origin than just the killing and near misses he'd imagined were troubling Jazz.

"Even when I'd recovered physically, I was a liability; I just couldn't deal mentally with the job. I'd killed one member of the team and I couldn't shake the though that I might do the same thing again, I lost all confidence in me." Requiem fell silent and looked into Bluestreak's face his optics begging the younger mech to understand and forgive him.

Bluestreak smiled reassuringly and said "From what I've heard Scan's death wasn't your fault and they" he jerked his head backwards towards the Riders "obviously don't hold you responsible otherwise you'd have been deactivated a long time ago."

Sunstreaker nodded and added "Everyone's entitle to doubt themselves Jazz, even you. And after something like that, frankly I'd be more worried about you if you didn't."

Requiem twisted his head round to look up at the yellow twin over his shoulder, a faint glimmer of hope kindling in his optics at those words.

"You got back into the game at some point." Sideswipe asked from his crouch beside Requiem, "How'd that happen?"

Requiem made a half laugh half sobbing noise and said "By accident, I drifted, after I'd left. No rank, no faction, no nothing really, just me, myself and I. I turned my hand to all sorts of civilian jobs in all sorts of places, but I found I couldn't leave the war behind. Everywhere I went I found myself tuning in to Autobot broadcasts, the local and galactic news trying to keep up with the situation," a faint smile ghosted across his face "I got me into more than one bar brawl over my opinions on the whole thing. So a century or so later, flat broke and working my passage on a shuttle back to Cybertron, I decided that maybe I should stop talking about what I'd do in a situation and restart doing it. I still couldn't bring myself to get back in the game so deep, so I signed on with the regulars as a scout."

Sync made a spluttering sound and tried to drag both optic ridges back down onto his face, and a general sniggering rose from the other Riders.

"You," Requiem said faintly accusingly, glaring at Sync "had dragged my skid plate through enough seek, locate and blow ups that I had more than a little experience at following a trail. And of all people you should know how hard I am to find if I put my processor to it."

Outright laughter followed this statement, and Prime felt his lips twitching into a smile as he recalled several occasions when he'd spent cycles trying to track Jazz down without success only to find him waiting in his office after he'd finally given up.

Requiem blew air through his vents and continued "Trouble was I couldn't just do the scout thing, my past caught up with me and I found myself thinking as a saboteur. Getting inside places and mapping them, taking some out damaging others, turning in really detail plans of places along with a list of ways and means to take 'em out. That kinda thing gets you noticed real quickly, so I found myself assigned to Prime's unit as a saboteur. Back in the game sure, but only on the fringes, and found I could deal with that. I work as a solitaire most of the time, only person who's gonna suffer if I glitch up is me."

"So how'd all this start?" Ironhide asked coldly "You ran into him" he stabbed an accusing finger at Sync "and decided to catch up with old friends?"

"This would be were we take up the story." Rib answered "About two years ago we decided to quit the game ourselves, while we were all still alive and functional enough to enjoy life. Tradition dictates that any team leaving the game on their feet gets one free shot at settling a debt, any team who survives for any length of time has people it owes."

"No need for discussion in our case," Boom interrupted his voice edged with anger "That glitch Maldor had cost us two good Riders, a good many friends and caused us more trouble than any 'con ever managed. We were always going to take him or go down trying."

"Ease off the throttle Boom." Sync warned "We went after Maldor to avenge Scan's death and for revenge for what that death had done to Jazz, who was never part of the plan, we figured he was still safe with you lot on Earth. So slowly, carefully over the space of the year before last we began working our separate ways into Maldor's organisation. It takes time to do this sort of thing properly, time and care, one slip by one mech and we're all gone."

"And he didn't recognise you?" Hound asked incredulously

A thin, humourless smile stretched across Syncs lips and he answered "No, we've never actually been face to face in our proper colours and forms for more than a few seconds before now. So we hid in plain sight, using our skills to further Maldor's schemes, or at least that's the impression we gave. More than one business venture went up in flames thanks to our influence, be it direct sabotage or discrete passing of information to the authorities. And we waited, made ourselves indispensable, dug in deeper and deeper."

"The plan was always to capture him," Tick Tick picked up the tale, "which made things more complicated. A straight forward kill would have been easier, but he deserves to meet the justice of his people. The plans were constantly changing, but then he brought us altogether here. Some big business deal was going sour and he wanted his best 'fixers' to deal with it. The opportunity was just too good to pass up, so we set about making it look like there was a plan shaping up to replace him, the perfect excuse to rig up the extra defences you lot ran into." A wicked grin settled on her face "Of course everyone forgets that defences can be turned either way, the plan fixed on triggering with looked like the plot, setting off the defences to keep out anyone who might get in the way, rig the lower levels to collapse and snatch him in the confusion."

Sync sighed and said "As far as your involvement in this, this is where it really starts. I was out of town making holes in a few escape clauses, no point in taking down the head life form if his lieutenants can step in and pull it back together. "He paused and asked Requiem "You've still got that data chip haven't you?"

Requiem freed a hand from Bluestreak's grasp, reached into a subspace pocket and pulled out a large storage chip, as he went to throw it to Sync a thin trail of smoke curled up from his wrist joint which stopped moving with a wheezing grinding noise.

"Umm Shrike?" Requiem asked staring at his now immovable wrist "How long is 'isn't going to hold out for much longer' actually likely to be?"

Shrike raised an optic ridge and said thoughtfully "Longer than this, would the three of you kindly move so I can run a scan."

As Bluestreak, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe reluctantly moved away from Requiem Shrike's optics began to transform. The outer ring went dark and the middle ring spun ninety degrees so that the faint lines that ran across her optics were vertical. The inner circle split into sections which slid down and under the middle ring allowing a solid deep blue circle to take its place, shutters came down changing her wide round optics into thin oblong slats. She stared at Requiem for a few minuets; the only sign of activity was the occasional change in colour of her inner optic ring.

//Ratchet would you care to offer a professional second opinion?// Shrike asked over a very tight digital link.

//Show me// Ratchet responded, holding his face still with years of practise as the data began scrolling across his optics. //He's leaking internally in most joints, not enough to kill him, but where some of his coolant lines have torn the fluids are mixing and setting locking the joints up. The energon conversion cycle can't keep the acidity level stable resulting in clotting in the minor lines. No more than five hours before we need to put him on full life support.//

Shrike gave an almost imperceptible nod and said aloud "Three hours, after that you're in the bay on support, looks like I did more of a botch job than I thought. Better wrap this confession session up fast."

Sync nodded and continued "I was halfway through scuppering ships when I spotted Jazz about to get an appointment with the smelter, so I hauled his aft out of trouble." He flicked a look between Prime and Prowl before carrying on "let's just say I was, surprised, to find him where he was doing what he was. I told him what was going down and offered him a spot on the team; after all he has as much of a stake in this debt as we do if not more. He agreed and we both came back here."

Requiem looked up from examining his broken wrist and said "The plan was for me to play decoy. I would pretend to be a passer on of information, when we were ready I'd deliberately get careless enough that Maldor found out about what was going on, he'd then send someone out to pick me up, I was always gonna end up in Shrike's hands, but it was only supposed to be a day of not answering questions and maybe picking up a few dents. I'd escape at some point during the night and sabotage the power plus what ever else I could get to while they took care of business upstairs." He paused and looked at Prowl guilt rising in his optics "You turned up at the wrong time, Maldor had people trailing me, when you guys showed up and made a beeline for me, he panicked."

"I had the unmakers own job convincing the freaking out little glitch we should take the three of you alive." Sync muttered "He was all for blowing you into the matrix there and then."

"Well you were evidently your usual charming self," Shrike said pointedly "because the first I know about the change in plans is when the little biological malfunction calls me and drops the whole mess in my hands. So now I need to keep Maldor distracted enough that he doesn't notice what the rest of the team is doing and somehow keep the two of you," she waived a hand at Prime and Prowl "alive and unscathed."

"So, you decided that Jazz was expendable and tortured him just to keep Maldor amused?" Tracks asked horrified.

"Not quite," Shrike replied, unruffled by the looks of pure hatred and outrage being directed at her, "Jazz was the obvious choice for interrogation, not only was he the alleged primary contact for the plotters, he has the necessary training to resist it and I know most of his limits. I could have done a number of much less messy, showy things that would have broken him completely."

Requiem made a sound of agreement and said "At this point I had no idea what the plan was so I just played it as if it were real."

"And was it real, or was it faked?" Hound asked, his processor reeling from what he'd heard.

"It was real, you can fake torture but you need a very good studio set up and a lot of time." Requiem said, looking at Prime he added quietly "I'm so sorry you had to see it, but there was no other way to keep you safe."

"What about the hacking?" Prime asked pain lacing his voice, "That didn't look faked either and yet." He gestured at Requiem as if to say here you still are.

Requiem made an odd sort of half swallowed howl in his throat and shrunk into himself optics offlining. Bluestreak and the twins who had regrouped around him exchanged worried looks and moved closer offering reassurance and comfort silently.

"It was and it wasn't" Shrike said, her face was troubled, "We had you two to worry about and we needed Jazz to blow the power, so I'd been putting together the parts for a temporary frame," she flicked her fingers at Requiem, "but transferring Jazz into it was going to be a problem. We had to convince Maldor the he was dead, it was the only way I'd be allowed to be alone in the repair bay with him, and also we had to stall him demanding that I pick one of you two and see what I could get out of you. The only thing I could think of was to hook up Requiem to full life support and do an uplink load from Jazz into Requiem, shut Jazz down into stasis and then transplant the spark later. One dead Jazz, one living Requiem with the added bonus that Maldor was willing to wait a few days to see what I could get from the allegedly burnt out remains of Jazz's memory before starting the whole process again with a new victim."

Wheeljack and Ratchet were staring at her in disbelief, processing the risks she'd taken pulling off a stunt like that, risks both to herself and to Jazz.

Wheeljack finally unlocked his vocaliser and said faintly, "You used yourself as a router for a full software transfer?"

"Only solution to our many problems." Shrike answered, shrugging her shoulders, "I'd over exaggerated the whole concept of hacking to Maldor, and he was convinced that even if Jazz kept silent you two would spill instantly rather than face the possibility that you'd be hacked as well". A grimace twisted her face "The actual transfer was one of the more, unpleasant, experiences of my life."

"I thought she was genuinely going to hack me," Requiem said "Those goodbyes were for real." A bitter smile crossed his face "I'd accepted I was going to die under torture by that point; I figured that it was some sort of twisted cosmic justice for what I'd done to Scan. It wasn't until she established a connection that I found out what the plan was, and by that time I was in no position to tell you about it."

Bee shook his head and hazarded "So you transferred Jazz into Requiem, code, storage and spark, and then proceeded with the original plan?"

Rib nodded and said "I'd kept an optic on all transmissions made and caught the tape of what had happened on it first broadcast, unfortunately for us Prime your security officer is very, very efficient. He snagged it from the data stream before I could jam it, which led to you lot crashing the party."

"So," Sync said his tone suddenly cold and brisk, the sound of a professional solider determined to see some unpleasant task done as fast as possible "you formally arrested the three of us on charges of treason murder and being an accessory, although how exactly your supposed to be an accessory to your own murder I'm not sure. You've had our confession Prime, time to hand down sentence."

No one moved or spoke for a long time, all optics focused on Prime, who sat chin resting on this chest his optics fixed in a million mile stare.

"I need some time to consider my verdict." Prime's voice was flat, betraying no sign of his thoughts or emotions "What will happen to Requiem when his body give up?"

"Jazz's body shell is on full life support in the repair bay, it needs some work to be habitable again and more much more work before it's going to walk out under its own power." Shrike said calmly, "The necessary equipment to uplink and transfer is built into the bunks."

"You may not have time," Sync said in the same flat voice "Most of your command structure is here, as well as your best front line troops. Megatron may well be stomping all over earth and your remaining crew."

Prime turned his head to stare at Ironhide as the old mech clapped both hands over his mouth and began rocking with laughter, Prowl looked worriedly at Ratchet as he began sniggering and waving a finger at Mirage.

"Ohhh, I don't think we need worry about 'the Lord Protector'. Do we Mirage?" Sideswipe asked sweetly a wide angelic smile stretching from audio to audio.

"No we don't," Sunstreaker added the same smile decorated his face "after all he's 'a noble and honourable warrior', isn't he?"

Requiem looked from one twin to the other, confusion in his optics. Deciding he wouldn't get any sense from them he looked imploringly at Bluestreak, only to be more confused but the fact that Blue had collapsed against his knees and was shaking with laughter.

"Sorry, Prime." Tracks stuttered between sobs of laughter, "we, we didn't, didn't get to the signing ceremony."

Boom looked at the others and then shrugged his shoulders "They've cracked under the strain, only explanation."

Prime, Prowl and the Riders fixed their optics on the only Autobot who wasn't convulsed with laughter. Mirage had buried his face in his hands and was quietly muttering about just what he was going to do to the others when this was all over.

"Mirage?" Requiem asked tentatively "What are they going on about?"

Mirage raised his head opened his mouth to speak, made a series of inarticulate noises and closed his mouth again.

Hound got a brief hold on his mirth and began to hum the funeral march, off key and out of time before giving up to laughter again at the glare Mirage gave him.

"Mirage." Prime growled, "Talk."

Mirage looked Prime squarely in the optics and said in a calm voice "Red Alert isn't the only one good at data capture; Megatron saw the broadcast as well. He offered and I accepted full and formal truce in all places until we had rescued the living and recovered the dead, and completed the rights for Jazz."

Prime stared at Mirage in blank amazement, he couldn't think of a single thing to say. He was brought out of his daze by Tick Tick high pitched shrieking as she collapsed sideways on the couch and curled up in a ball laughing. Boom was soon lying back on the other end of the couch helpless with laughter; Rib's lips were twitching as he struggled to suppress the amusement that snapped in his optics. Requiem and Prowl were staring at Mirage in shock, mouthing silent words as they tried to get their processors round the idea. Prime recognised the hysteria that floated on edges of his CPU the as the release of tension and emotions that had been bottled up for days and gave himself over to it.

"Good job." He managed to get out, silently promising himself he'd get the full story later.

"Perhaps," Shrike said slyly a wicked grin blooming on her face "we should just lock you and 'The Lord Protector' in a room Requiem and leave you to negotiate a peace treaty."

The glare that earned her set them all off, the twins crashing to the floor convulsed helplessly. Prowl removed himself from Ratchet's hold gently propping the wheezing medic so he wouldn't fall over and walked to stand in front of Requiem.

"Look me in the optics and tell me you think it was all worth it." Prowl said, holding out a hand to help Requiem to his feet.

Requiem accepted the hand as Bluestreak obligingly rolled off his knees on to his back on the floor. He stepped over the Datsun and stood before Prowl his mismatched optics glowing with conviction.

"Yes," Requiem said his voice firm "it was. I'm sorrier than you can know that you got caught up in it, but I'd do exactly the same thing again."

"How touching." An unknown voice spoke from the doorway.

Silence fell as everyone froze looking at the man who stood there. Of medium height for a humanoid he had pale waxy skin and his green eyes showed his hatred and contempt of mechanical life forms.

"Maldor." Sync hissed.

Maldor smiled mockingly and said "Thank you so much for the fascinating story but now I think it's time to execute the sentence for treason and murder."

He raised the arm that until now had been hidden behind him, the solid shot pistol that he held discharged three times.

Three energy weapons discharged and Maldor fell senseless to the deck.

All three solid rounds hit their target, and Requiem fell silently his chest and face torn open energon and fluid pumping over the deck.


	15. On the edge

A/N: ahhhh! This chapter has been fought for against the biggest case of writer's block I've ever had, so apologies if it's utter drivel. Also grovelling apologies to Toshi because I forgot to credit her with Jazz code name in the last chapter, sorrysorrysorry.

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Ratchet was moving before Requiem hit the deck, pulling his kit from subspace as he went. He nearly collided with Sync and Boom as they leapt over Requiem's downed form to get to Maldor, as he dropped to his knees Shrike was already working to stem the flow of energon from the massive wounds in Requiem's chest.

"I don't think he hit anything vital," Shrike muttered as Ratchet reached into the open chest cavity and began clamping lines shut "looks like he was aiming for the pump and spark, thank Primus they're not in the usual place."

Ratchet looked down at the mass of torn wiring, tubes and superstructure exposed by the holes, it didn't look anything like the normal Autobot or Decepticon internal configuration, in fact it didn't look much like anything.

Shrike broadcast over a thin digital link //We can't save him, the damage is too severe. If we can get him stable enough to transfer to the bay and on to life support we might buy ourselves time to make his other body habitable again. //

Aloud Shrike said "Tick, take someone with you and get half a dozen units of transfusion grade, the same of coolant, the portable power generator, my gun kit, a gurney and kick the repair bay into boot up."

Two mech left the lounge at a run as Ratchet brought all his scanners online, the news they told him was bad. Requiem was haemorrhaging energon and coolant at an alarming rate, large portions of his wiring in the thoracic cavity had shorted out further damaging the energon lines they ran close to. His cooling systems deprived of their vital liquid coolant were overheating and seizing up, causing rapid over heating in his cranial unit, his power supply output was spiking crazily as his capacitors were alternatively overloaded and drawn flat in microseconds.

//How much of this mess can we offline?// Ratchet asked //We need to reduce the strain on his power supply or it might just burn out his laser core.//

//Every thing but the core systems are slag so we may just as well reduce him to those// Shrike replied //Open the catches on your side of his torso and help me lift the armour off, you should find the circuit breakers and data lines under the main cross brace. His energon pressures dropping too fast so I'm going to disconnect the flow to his limbs, hopefully that'll stabilise the pressure in the core enough that we can risk moving him.//

Ratchet discarded the damaged body panels and was just reaching under the strut to disconnect the circuits when Requiem began to fit, thrashing wildly, arms and legs flailing he caught both Shrike and Ratchet in the face as they tried to stop him moving and further damaging himself. Inarticulate shrieks and moans came from his vocaliser and his head rolled from side to side his optics bright but unseeing.

"Slag, slag, slag" Ratchet swore as he scanned Requiem's processor, "His CPU's overheating and throttling, he's dropping cycles all over the place."

Shrike nodded her agreement, doing her own scan she muttered a few words in a language unknown to Ratchet and then said "His pipes are cross addressing and he's blowing registers as well. We need to get his CPU to stop trying to process everything or we're going to loose him at this rate, if I hold him down can you get to the breakers?"

There was a dull thump by Requiem's head and when Ratchet looked that way he saw that Prowl had dropped to his knees and gently lifted Requiem's head into his lap. Prowl's expression as he looked down at the dying mech was a spark stopping mix of tenderness, compassion and despair.

"You promised you'd teach me to dance." Prowl's voice was gentle, "You gave me your oath Jazz and I've never known you break your word." He gently placed his hand on either side of Requiem's face holding it still as tears began to run down his face and splash softly, silently onto the torn face plates he cradled in his lap "Please, please Jazz stay with me. I watched you die once I, I don't think I could cope with that again."

At the sound of Prowl's voice Requiem quietened, his body going still. Ratchet and Shrike simultaneously did the same scan of his CPU and found that it was no longer teetering on the edge of overloading but as soon as Prowl fell silent his processor began frantically racing again.

"Keep talking" Shrike snapped at the tactician "Ratchet get his systems offline now, before he fits again."

As Prowl began a rambling monologue and Requiem stilled Ratchet reached under the strut and tripped breakers and separated data lines, turning a once mobile fully functioning mech into a large pile of scrap, all that remained operating were the systems necessary to keep his spark, CPU and audios running. The two medics worked in silence sealing lines and discounting joints and circuits, energon and other fluids seeped from the now disconnected body parts and created a large pool on the floor, slight vibrations in the deck announced the arrival of Tick Tick and Wheeljack with the medical supplies.

//I think we've sealed everything,// Shrike broadcast, avoiding interrupting Prowl //I'll do a continuous scan as you put in an energon drip just in case we get a leak somewhere.//

Ratchet accepted a cube of transfusion grade energon from Wheeljack and carefully spliced the drip into the least damaged of Requiem's major lines, after a few moments neither medic had detected any new leaks from the sealed lines and Shrike pulled the small power unit out of the pile of equipment and began preparing to connect it in place of the rapidly fading one in Requiem's body as Ratchet did another scan.

//His engines going to seize in about 120 seconds// Ratchet told Shrike and Wheeljack over their private line//'Jack you might want to get ready to prop up Prowl, he's gonna think the worst when he hears it stop.//

Shrike extracted a bulky syringe from the kit which was spilled out over the deck and tossed it across to Ratchet.

//Liquid nitrogen,// Shrike broadcast //this frame has an Quasiturbine HCCI engine, the housing cover intake valve is coded green.//

Ratchet smiled, the outside might not win any prizes and the wiring and lines were an untraceable mess but she hadn't skimped on the engine powering the frame. Moving aside a bundle of fried wiring he found the housing covers and injected the nitrogen into the intake reducing the temperature inside to something approaching normal.

//Engine temperature still on the high side but no longer critical// Ratchet informed the other two.

Shrike's fingers were deftly splicing in the power generator reducing the strain on the engine further cooling it, Ratchet carefully spliced in a coolant transfusion line and watched as with agonising slowness as the warnings his sensors were giving him about Requiems condition became less strident.

Both Shrike and Ratchet sat back on their heels and scanned the remains of Requiem's body, checking what more they needed and could do before they moved him. Optics locked and a silent diagnosis and affirmation passed between them, Shrike began to spray a sealant over the exposed circuits of Requiem's hip and shoulder joints.

"Critical but stable" Ratchet announced to the room, "Prowl you need to stay with him and keep talking until we can get him on full support."

Prowl nodded and looked back down at Requiem, taking no more interest in the proceedings not pausing in his monolog. Wheeljack brought the gurney to one side and collapsed the wheel base so it rested at floor level, Ratchet noted with approval that he'd already clipped extra energon and coolant transfusion cubes to the frame. Carefully Ratchet attached the half empty cubes that were slowly pumping their contents into Requiem to the frame connecting them to the full cubes to insure a continuous flow without the need to insert new lines as Wheeljack clipped the power generator to the side rail. Gently, wincing at each slight knock they eased Requiem onto the gurney, as it rose slowly up onto its wheels Shrike's head snapped round to look at Sync who had risen to his feet in the corner of the room where he and Boom had dragged Maldor. A private conversation passed between the two Riders before Sync nodded, a click indicated that the gurney was ready and with Shrike leading the way the five of them left the room.

Sync waited for the door to the lounge to close fully and the sound of footsteps to fade before allowing a faint grin to play over his face.

"Nice shooting you three," Sync said glancing at the trio of gunners "but don't you think all three of you hitting him with a stun shot was just a little bit of overkill?"

Bluestreak, Bumblebee and Tick Tick shared a look before Tick Tick responded "Professional insurance sir, on the very remote chance one of us might have missed."

Sync's grin faded as he looked down at Boom crouched over the limp form of Maldor, the jet's wings were vibrating in fury and his copper optics were reduced to the thinnest slits but the anger and hate in those slits would have been enough to frighten even Shockwave.

"Secure him and get him in to an isolation cell. And Devastator," Sync paused until those disturbing optics were fixed on him "no games. I don't want him being able to claim maltreatment when we get to Krevok, clear?"

A silent battle of wills raged between the two, the slate grey face twisted into feral hate filled mask copper optics burning like supernova and the immovable green face cold as space with yellow optics as unyielding as gravity.

"Sir yes sir!" Devastator's raspy voice was as cold as the pit.

Sync looked up and those same cold optics gazed silently at Prime before sweeping over the assembled mechs and fixing on Ironhide who stiffened and glared back unflinchingly.

"Ironhide would you accompany Devastator," Sync asked "just to make sure there aren't any _accidents_" the last word came out layered with many meanings and a glare at the silent grey mech who was binding Maldor's arms and legs securely.

Ironhide shot Prime a sideways glance before rising to his feet and walking over to pickup the now twitching body of Maldor, Devastator sprang to his feet fury rolling off him in almost visible waves he stalked out of the room with Ironhide following closely.

"Suggestion," Rib's voice was emotionless "keep him under surveillance until medical situation is resolved."

"Agreed," Sync asked, weariness creeping back into his voice and posture "Rib get back up to the bridge and check in with our suppliers. I don't know if Shrike's going to need parts but if she does we're probably gonna need 'em fast."

Rib calmly stood and walked out to the bridge, Tick Tick sank back down into the sofa she'd occupied earlier.

"Did Shrike give you any odds?" Tick Tick asked hesitantly, almost as if afraid of the answer.

"No," Sync cycled air through his valves as he slumped back into his chair, "she never does Tick, and you know that. Didn't want me letting Prowl know that the glitch was still alive though, she figured he might loose it completely and beat Boom to tearing him apart physically." a low thump was heard as Sync's head dropped back against the top of the chair and his optics off lined "What a glitching mess. Just as well we don't have to write this one up; the brass'd never stop laughing at us."

Silence descended over the room like a thick fog and tension crackled like static between the mechs who sat silently brooding over past events and worrying about future developments.

_---- Sanctuary's brig ----_

To Ironhide's surprise the brig area was very small, consisting of two high security isolation cells and one medium one. Boom had stalked in without pausing and keyed open on of the cells and then stood aside to let Ironhide enter the cell, Ironhide had realised immediately that the two of them just weren't going to fit in the small space.

"Shall we dance?" 'Hide asked in a joking tone, when Boom simply stared at him he swept a hand out and continued "I can't fit through the door with ya hoverin' in it"

Boom started and almost sheepishly moved out of the way allowing 'Hide to set Maldor down on the floor of the cell, closing the door behind him he found himself almost in Boom's armour as they other mech steeped into his personal space to drill that disturbing copper stare into his optics. Then just as suddenly as he'd steeped into 'Hide's space he left it, walking over to an apparently blank section of wall he kicked the panelling, hard. 'Hide opened his mouth to say that destroying the ship probably wasn't going to get him back in his commanders good books when the whole panel slid sideways revealing a very cramped monitoring station.

"There not the most comfortable things" Boom's voice echoed slightly as he rummaged about in the depths of the cupboard "and frankly I prefer the floor, but" he emerged carrying a battered, spindly looking chair "you're a free guest so I figured I should offer."

Ironhide swept his optics over the offering and proceeded to slowly and with much creaking of joints settle himself on the floor, Boom grinned shoved the chair aside and dropped down with his back against the opposite wall.

"Tell me about him," Boom requested "how has he lived since he left us?"

"Jazz?" Ironhide asked just to make sure that they were on the same wavelength.

Boom nodded and watched Ironhide expectantly, shifting to get more comfortable he considered what to say.

"He's a mass o' contradictions," Ironhide said "happy go lucky one minuet and as serious as deactivation the next, a gentlebot, charmer and diplomat at dinner and a cold oiled killer at the battle before supper. Always plotting some mischief or helping some one plot it, but a responsible officer, the sort you can trust and obey with out question."

Boom grinned and offered "The kind of mech you'd charge into the pit itself for, 'cause you knew he'd be able to pull you out again."

"Yeah," Ironhide agreed "that's Jazz. He and Prowl kinda complete each other, Prowl takes care of the tactics and logistics and Jazz sorts out the morale and personal stuff, ya never saw two more opposite mechs work so well together."

Boom's grin faded and he looked down at the floor before saying quietly "Scan and Jazz were like that. I still miss them; we were the youngest members of the team. I mean I know Jazz was Sync's XO and he was fragging good at it, but we were still the young hellions."

A smile not dissimilar to the one that often graced Jazz's face just before some choice bit of mischief went down lit Boom's face and an expressive, undulating shrug of his wide angular shoulders spoke of many a good joke played. Ironhide smiled as well, it didn't take much imagination to figure out just what sort of thing they'd gotten up to, out of the corner of his optics he saw the discarded chair shift minutely and realised that Mirage had silently and invisible joined their vigil.

"Nothing's change much Boom," Ironhide said reassuringly as he prepared to regale his audience with some of the more outrageous stories of Jazz's exploits.

_---- The repair bay ----_

Shrike removed the excess solder from the joins in the cables hooking Requiem to Sanctuaries power supply, Wheeljack removed the portable unit from its clips on the side of the bunk and deposited it on the table. Ratchet applied a layer of plastic cement to the splice that joined the transfusion lines that ran into Requiem's own lines with those that connected to the repair bays supply of energon and coolant. Requiem was now totally dependant on the life support systems, one last step remained before they could turn their attention to fixing Jazz.

"Prowl," Ratchet said to the black and white who was still talking quietly into one of Requiem's audios "We're ready to put him into stasis. You need to say goodbye, just for now," he added quickly at the look of abject horror that contorted Prowl's face "once he's safely under we can start fixing Jazz."

"I'll," Prowl struggled to say the words as fresh tears ran down his face "I'll catch you on the flip side Jazz." He finally managed to choke out.

Shrike manipulated the controls on the side of the bunk and Requiem gently slipped into stasis. Wheeljack wrapped a supporting arm around Prowl's shoulders and gently escorted him into a small private room, where the tactician could recover from the emotional stress.

Ratchet looked back at Shrike and was astonished to find that her emotionless mask had broken. Hands resting on the bunk head bowed her slight sharp frame was trembling, her optics were full of guilt and shame as she gazed at the ruins of a friend and team mate.

"He's a tough little glitch," Ratchet said in a no nonsense tone, hoping to pull her back to some sort of professional detachment "he'll make it, with a lot of help from us of course."

Shrike stood straight immediately at his words, the professional mask sliding back into place. She did a final check of the readings and then gestured to him to follow her to the cryogenic unit where Jazz's equally battered and torn body awaited repair.

_---- The lounge ---_

Prime gazed contemplatively at his feet, which were stretched out in front of him as he slumped in his chair. The three marksmen had gone off to blow up drones taking the twins with them; Ironhide and Mirage were ensconced in the brig, the medics and Prowl where, he suppressed a shudder, busy. That left him, Hound, Trailbreaker and Sync waiting, just waiting; Hound and Trailbreaker had solved the boredom problem by falling into recharge. Sync hadn't moved or spoken for over an hour, Primus how he hated waiting, especially for news like this.

"He could be a right handful when he wanted to be." Sync said randomly.

Prime refocused his optics on the green mech and gave him a look that said uh?

Sync grinned and explained "Jazz, he really knew how to liven up a day." A snort escaped his vocaliser "Survival tip: never let Jazz get bored for more than twenty four hours, after that" he trailed off shuddering at memories.

Prime couldn't suppress a sympathetic wince, oh yes; Jazz certainly knew how to liven up a day. Millennia later and the incident with the, well they'd never found out exactly what its real name was so they'd agreed on Ratchet's proposed name of 'Glitching Big Bug', still gave him night terrors every time he heard a clicking noise in the air vents. Deciding he didn't want the silence to return Prime began to recount the story in all its embarrassing detail to an audience that would appreciate it.


	16. Crime and absolution

A/N: Dragon: the last bit of chap 10 and everything up to the end of chap 15 actually happen in one 6 hour period, what you might call a busy day! Also I'm afraid I don't have a good handle on Omega Supremes' personality so rather than do a bad job of writing him I've opted to give him some time to relax in the sun.

And for all those who wanted to see Prowl snap and act irrationally carry on reading.

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_---- Prowl's POV ----_

I can feel the edge of the med bunk slowly collapsing under my fingers where I'm gripping it, but I can't bring myself to care. Right now the only thing stopping me pacing the narrow confines of the rest of the repair bay is my grip on this bunk, and pacing is only going to get me thrown out of the bay entirely. Not going to happen, not today and certainly not right now. The door to the operating room should by rights be a melted pile of scrap from the glare I'm giving it, behind it after a very long week Ratchet, Wheeljack and Shrike are finally transferring Requiem back into Jazz. None of us have left the bay in that week, they've spent every online second repairing Jazz and I spent the time sitting next to the support bunk talking to an unresponsive Requiem.

Primus damm it! What's taking so long! I can feel my cooling systems straining to keep up as I get more and more worried and frustrated at not knowing what gong on.

They threw me out of the room during the software transfer because, apparently, I was distracting them with my 'incessant twitching'. They also had the effrontery to lock the door so I couldn't just go storming back in, and then, when all I'm doing is working off my nerves by walking about out here imagining the worst, Ratchet, Unicron take him, has the nerve to shout through the door that if I don't stop pacing and cursing they'll call Prime and have me confined to the brig! A stabbing pain from my left hand tells me that I've completely crushed the rim of the bunk and driven a shard into my palm, well at least I now have something real to worry about rather than the worst cases my logic centre and battle computer keep pushing through my processor.

Just as I'm deciding that I should find something to patch the wound in my hand rather than just stare at the energon running from in down my wrist a shrieking wailing noise erupts from behind the door and I feel my pump stutter. Thos are the alarms from the life support systems. Oh Primus no, please, not now, please. As swiftly as they started someone silences the alarms. The only thing that keeps me from pounding on the door demanding to be let in is the knowledge that Ratchet needs to concentrate totally on saving which ever one of them is dying, standing just out of arm length of the door I curse my logic centre to the pit and back. Jazz is dying in there, and I'm out here doing nothing, thinking logically about why I can't and shouldn't do anything! My spark begins to pulse in time with the muffled sound of someone walking, slowly, towards to door, my battle computer overloads and shuts down, taking most of my logic centre with it. My ability to process my surrounding is almost nonexistent when then the door opens and a mech stands there looking at me.

Too short to be Ratchet, wrong face and neck shape to be Wheeljack, and unless Shrike's had a repaint there's only one other option.

"Jazz?" my voice is almost unrecognisable, even to me.

And then all at once I find what little is left of my processing ability just can't deal with what's happening, the world fades from my optics and a roaring noise fills my audios, dimly I feel myself moving but then comes blessed blankness.

_---Jazz's POV ---_

"Requiem et pax eternaum" I say softly as Ratchet turns off the alarms on the support bunk that holds Requiem's fast fading body "For one of me at least."

Moments later and Requiem is just one more dead body, just one more mech who didn't live to see peace. The fact that I was that mech doesn't bother me, I've worn many faces, many names and none of them have lived long. Sometimes I wonder just who 'Jazz' is, the start of all those other personalities, what's left after them or a blend of them? A sharp elbow in the grill brings me back from my philosophical wanderings to find Shrike glaring at me, once she's sure she's got my full attention her gaze goes pointedly over my shoulder to the door of the operating room and the command _go and talk to him_ hangs heavy and unspoken in the air between us.

Turning a bit unsteadily on my heel I walk towards the door, pump going a thousand beats a second, processor racing desperately trying to think of something more meaningful and less trite than 'I'm sorry' to say to him. There's no question in my CPU which him I'm going to find on the other side of the door, he doesn't know it and I'm not about to tell the medics but all the time I was in stasis I could hear him talking to me. That wonderful soothing voice, I have no idea what he was saying but just the sound comforted me in the dark horror of sensory depravation. After everything I've put him through he still insists on staying close to me, I don't think I could do the same if our positions were reversed.

The door opens smoothly in front of me and there he is, Primus he looks, well, frazzled, stressed. His doors are quivering and his hands are twitching, there's a distinctly haggard air about him.

"Jazz?" he rasps out, almost as if he doesn't believe it.

Then before I can get word out, a look of pure panic crosses his face and he flees blindly from the repair bay. I get one step into following when a resounding crash tells me he's collided with someone in the corridor and at the concerned base rumble of Prime's voice my spark dives into my feet. Given that I'm technically still under arrest for being an accessory to treason and murder, and all the stuff I've put him and the others through there is no way this conversation with Prime is gonna be pleasant. As his massive frame fills the doorway I pull myself to attention and brace to ride out the storm, praying silently to Primus for time to set thing right between me and Prowl.

_---- Prime's POV ----_

I'm still grinning at Ratchet's rather, terse, message as I stroll down the corridor leading to the repair bay. The plain text communication almost crackled with medical ire as I was peremptorily ordered to 'get my sorry aft down to the repair bay and deal with Prowl'. Ratchet presented me with three options for doing this: jumping his bolts, an act for which neither Jazz nor Prowl would ever forgive me, getting him over energised to the point where he offlined, not possible in my opinion or by applying my fist to his head hard enough to offline him. Having dismissed all the presented options as immoral, impossible or personally unpalatable I'm trying to figure out what the pit option number four is when the sound of running feet echoes down the corridor, followed seconds later by a distraught Prowl. So distraught in fact that he collides blindly with me and reels away down the corridor with out even acknowledging me.

"Prowl," I call after him "what's happened?"

Unsurprisingly I get no response from the disappearing mech, so expecting to learn the worst I continue into the repair bay. Stepping through the door I'm brought up short by the sight of a very grim Jazz standing at parade attention, they must have had a fight of some sort, one which resulted in Prowl breaking down and running. I can feel a slow burning anger start in my spark, Prowl's kept himself a virtual prisoner in the bay staying by Jazz's side all this time, and the cold sparked, manipulative, shallow and treacherous little glitch seems to just casually twist Prowl around his finger and cast him aside as the occasion demands. I take a couple of processor cycles to calm down and get a grip on my thoughts, we've all made enough screw ups jumping to conclusions about Jazz and what we though had happened to last several lifetimes in the course of the last week or so.

"How long have you been online?" I strive for the cold impersonal professional tone of superior to subordinate.

"Sir, ten minutes sir." He replies in the full military style his voice coming out in the same flat formal tone.

Ten minutes, even for Jazz that's working fast to push Prowl over the edge to such an extent, _careful_ I remind myself, _no jumping to conclusions_.

"And what, exactly, did you say in those ten minutes to drive Prowl from the room?" A hint of accusing anger creeps into my voice.

An unmistakable flinch flashes through his frame so fast that if I hadn't been giving him my full and undivided attention I would have missed it. Guilty as charged it would seem, but I bite my lip and simply glare at him waiting for an answer.

"Sir, nothing sir." A bleak note of despair lurks under the carefully flat voice.

"Nothing?" I ask incredulously.

"Sir, yes sir." Jazz shifts slightly, opens his mouth to say something and then closes it again.

"Really," my voice has an acerbic edge "then why don't you tell me what you did say."

"Sir, I, he" Jazz trails off and drops his optics to stare at his feet, then raises his head again to stare past me at the back wall of the bay and continues "I didn't say anything to him sir. Sir I left surgical after the CMO was satisfied my condition was stable sir, upon entering this room I found Prowl standing just outside the door sir. Sir, he said my name and then fled sir."

It takes me a moment to process that statement stripping out all the Sirs, I doubt even Primus himself has ever heard Jazz so formal. A fluttering noise from his intakes is all the warning I have before Jazz suddenly drops down on to both knees before me.

"High one," Jazz says in the most formal Cybertronian dialect "I willingly submit to your judgement but beg you to grant me time to set right that which lies between Prowl and I."

My processors flounder for a few minutes, what ever I had been expecting this was not it. I have tentatively forgiven the rest of the Riders for what they've done and given the state of their armour after that 'sparing' session with the twins, Tracks, Mirage and Bumblebee I think the others have counted their revenge well and truly had. Dragging the fractured remnants of my processor together I say as gently as I can to the mech kneeling in submission before me.

"You stand under no judgment from me Jazz, you did only that which honour compelled you to. Go and talk to Prowl."

_----_

Prowl crouched in the far corner of a cargo bay, a dusty forgotten space obscured from the main bay by a crisscross of support struts. His mind a maelstrom of emotions and memories, the physical pain he'd endured from being chained by his doors to the wall. The emotional stress of being forced to watch Jazz being tortured, the mental anguish he'd felt when it appeared Jazz ha been killed while he watched helpless. The guilt that had been building for weeks before Jazz had left Earth and for the months after for stirring the daemons of the past and the soul tearing confusion and anger at the fact that Jazz had put him through all of it. His mind kept going round and round in these feelings and gradually his anger built into a towering rage directed at the person he considered the source of all his suffering: Jazz. An undetermined amount of time later the suffocating silence of the cargo bay was broken by the sound of a mech opening the door and walking into the bay.

"Prowl, are you in here?" Jazz's voice filled the space.

Prowl's head snapped up and he glared through the gaps in the lattice of struts at the target and cause of his anger and suffering, murder blazing in his optics. Jazz walked further into the cargo bay the door closing behind him, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in. Prowl narrowed his optics and waited, _closer, come closer_ he thought to himself, one hand gripping a length of broken strut. Jazz paused a few feet away and swung his head from side to side craning his neck to check all the nooks and crannies of the bay, he had turned his back to check the far side when Prowl sprung.

Senses and instincts honed to a razor edge by millenniums of surviving in the cutthroat world of black ops were all that saved Jazz from instant deactivation, as the other mech leapt at him he swayed and dropped causing the strut in Prowls grip to pass harmlessly through the air where his head had been. Unfortunately, Prowl's logic centre and battle computer were back online and even when overloaded by emotional input they were more than capable of adjusting his tactics to account for Jazz's evasive manoeuvres.

"Prowl, please, I just want to talk," Jazz begged, twisting out of the way of another viscous blow aimed at his face "please I'll understand if you hate me but please give me a chance to"

The rest of Jazz's unheard plea was lost as he stumbled back over a box; crashing to the ground the impact jolted his newly repaired sensors momentarily offline. It was all the opening Prowl needed, he brought the strut down on Jazz's exposed knee joints with a resounding crash buckling the armour plating and damaging the delicate mechanisms underneath . Jazz bit off a cry of pain and tried to get back to his feet but Prowl struck the damaged joints again with all his force breaking them, and as Jazz lay helpless on his back knees throwing sparks and leaking fluid he stood over him and, taking a firmer two handed grip on his weapon brought it down in a frenzied rain of blow on Jazz's chest and arms when he raised then to try and protect himself. Jazz's screams of pain and pleas for Prowl to stop where drowned out by Prowl's screamed litany of curses and accusations.

Ironhide and Hound where looking for Jazz, Prime had told them he was back online and they wanted to talk to him without anyone else around. They steeped into the corridor that ran the length of Sanctuary's keel and immediately stiffened, the faint sound of someone screaming drifted down the length of the corridor, without a word they took off at a run trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. Skidding to a halt beside the secondary cargo bay they opened the door and took in the scene inside in one horrified glance.

Jazz lay battered and defenceless on his back, whimpering and shuddering, as Prowl loomed over him a thick strip of metal gripped in both hands a wild unhinged look etched across his face, as they watched Prowl swung the bar into Jazz's helmet causing him to cry out in pain. Without further though Ironhide and Hound raced across the room, Ironhide tackled the tactician to the floor, wrenched the bar from his hand and pinned the furiously struggling tactician spread eagled to the floor, Hound slid to his knees beside Jazz and gently reached out and touched him.

"Prowl" Jazz whimpered "please, no."

Hound wasted no time, as gently as he could he gathered Jazz in his arms and set off towards the repair bay calling Prime on his internal radio.

"Prime." Optimus' calm reassuring voice filled the cramped space of the lift.

"Hound here, you need to find Sync, the twins and Wheeljack and head down to the secondary cargo hold. Prowl's completely lost it, Ironhide and I found him attacking Jazz with a metal bar, he's really done Jazz over."

"Where's Jazz now?" Prime's tone was sharp and concerned.

"I've got him; we're on the way to the repair bay." Hound replied pleased to be able to set his commanding officers mind at rest on that score at least.

"Acknowledged," Prime's voice took on that grim edge it developed when a battle was immanent and closed the radio link.

_----The repair bay some hours later ----_

Powering down the welder as she finished sealing the last tear in Jazz's armour Shrike stood and stretched, loose rivets in her spine making a host of sharp pinging noises, she sent Sync a tight fast info squirt telling him Jazz was fixed and walked towards the other occupied bunk, Ratchet lay curled up on his side deeply offline thanks to a cube of spiked energon, he'd worked himself almost into deactivation fixing Jazz the first time and she'd decided he needed to get a good couple of recharge cycles before anymore was asked of him. He cared too much to be a frontline medic in her opinion, the thought _or maybe I don't care enough_ drifted thorough her processor, a faint noise from the other bunk made her whirl round. Jazz stopped dead in the middle of sliding off the bunk, transfixed by the glare Shrike was giving him, he offered a guilty smile and lay down again earning an approving nod.

"He's under sedation in the brig, Prime's orders." Shrike said in answer to Jazz's unspoken question "And you're confined to the repair bay until I consider you fit for duty."

Jazz had sat bolt upright at the mention of Prowl's current circumstances and slumped in on himself at Shrikes pronouncement of his.

"He didn't know what he was doing," Jazz said in a small voice "he's been under so much pressure an' he don't exactly deal with stuff well."

"Jazz?" a voice asked from the doorway.

Jazz and Shrike looked round to find Bluestreak shifting nervously from foot to foot, Shrike smiled serenely at the younger mech and walked out of the bay towards her own quarters and some much needed recharge of her own, she might not be able to empathise with other mechs terrible well but the gunner had no such problems and she was content to leave Jazz in such capable hands. Beside she had a feeling she was going to need all the recharge she could get before Ratchet woke up and caught up with her.

_---- Sync's quarters the same time ----_

"For a mech who spends most of his time thinking he packs one pit of a punch." Sync mused staring into the depths of his cube of high grade.

Prime wordlessly agreed, the whole episode had been thoroughly depressing, Jazz was back in the repair bay and Prowl was under arrest in the cell next to the still disdainful and distasteful Maldor.

"Shrike's got Jazz back online," Sync informed him "restricted him to the repair bay 'till he's got over the emotional reaction. What ya' gonna do with the other one?"

Prime snorted and shook his head "No idea, I'm hoping that it was just a one time incident, caused by stress and fatigue. We'll see how he reacts once the sedative's worn off."

Sync gestured at Prime's empty cube and asked "Another?"

Prime handed the empty cube to Sync who walked more steadily than anyone who'd consumed that much high grade should decently be able to across the cabin and pulled out a bottle of something colourless.

"Slag the high grade; this'll put us out of our misery faster." Sync announced filling both cubes.

Prime regarded it suspiciously, and then decided he could do with a couple of cycles without having everything pressing down on him and took a mouthful. Fire burned its way down to his tanks, coolant boiled in his tubing and his optics shutdown. Rebooting his optics he regarded the cube with some respect, now that the fire in his throat had faded he could feel every cable and joint begin to relax in a slow wave that spread out from his tank.

"If I asked what it was would I regret the answer?" Prime ventured when he though his vocaliser might work again.

Sync laughed and replied "Yes."

"Then I'm not going to ask," Prime declared. The question that had been bothering him since he'd learnt that the Riders had deliberately captured Maldor chose that moment to rise unstoppable to his vocaliser. "But I will ask what's going to happen to Maldor."

Sync's grin turned predatory "The Krevok are, on the whole, a pacifist lot. Everything is done for 'the greater good', being mildly telepathic their also really sociable, but they do very firmly believe that you only get one shot at life. The stuff Maldor's done in prolonging his life by body hopping is heresy of the highest order to them, one of the few things so bad that the penalty is death."

Prime furrowed his optic ridges in thought, what ever the colourless stuff was it was certainly slowing his thought processes down and asked "But why not just put him up against the hull and shoot him? Same result less trouble."

"The Krevok don't execute a criminal, not ever. They're going to dump him on an island somewhere, with all he needs to live the natural length of his life and then forget about him." Sync's face was lit with an unholy glee at the thought "He's spent millennia cheating death, in fact he's probably older than most of your unit. And he never lets a body get too old, the moment it starts to show signs of age related deterioration he starts growing a new one. Now though he's gonna age slowly, oh so slowly gradually winding down towards death, all alone on some remote speck of land forgotten by everyone. And the sweetest thing about it is that every second of every minuet of every day for the remaining vorns of his life he's going to know who brought him to that state, who stripped him of all the power, wealth and infamy he had."

Prime shuddered at Sync's tone and face and determinedly took a swig from his cube. He wanted to get over energised the worst possible way, and then to get out of the company of these mechs as fast as possible before he found there view point too interesting and tempting to resist.

_---- Two days later, Sanctuary's lounge ----_

Mirage faded from sight as the door to the lounge opened to admit the Riders, Rib locked the door behind him and they sat in a loose circle allowing silence to reign for a few minutes as they all triggered the process that caused the lines on their armour to appear. Mirage looked closely at Jazz as the now familiar lines of rank and faction slowly burned there way across his paint, sure enough he also had a personal icon the now familiar burning skeleton caught in mid dance step with musical notation surrounding it. Mirage's smile turned into a frown more lines were working there way over everyone's armour, he recognised them as kill and mission marking and swallowed at the tale they told, oh yes Jazz had once had no problem killing.

"Music Man stand before your peers." Battle Axe commanded.

Jazz rose to his feet and stood at parade rest before the Hell Riders.

"You have performed well in this mission, beyond what was asked or what we had any right to expect." Battle Axe said "Therefore we again offer you the choice, stay or go?"

Music Man responded with out thought "I will go with them and hold the line on Earth."

The lines on his armour began to fade and soon he was back to the plain black and white Porsche the earth bound Autobots knew as Jazz.

Understanding smiles and nods circled the group and they let their lines fade as well before leaving Jazz alone in the room.

"If you think I still have a place there Mirage." Jazz look straight at him.

Feeling slightly guilty for having witnessed something that was obviously supposed to be private Mirage faded back into view.

"You'll always have a place with us Jazz." Mirage said "And I did swear and oath to bring you home."

_---- The desert of Oman three months later ---_

Megatron snarled at the warning and malfunction notices that filled his diagnostic queue, some very lucky shots from various Autobots had left him with critical damage. Under cover of the carnage caused by Devastator he had managed to drag himself into the cover of a rock pile, where he currently lay slowly leaking to death with no radio and no way to return to the Nemesis. Death it seem would claim him ingloriously after all, no epic fight to the finish with Prime, no last stand rallying his troops just the slow inexorable passage of time.

Hi processors were slowing, he felt strangely disconnected from reality and the world had become hazy in his optics when he heard the sound of an engine rounding the corner of the rock pile, the sound of someone transforming pulled his attention enough for him to squint up at the figure that loomed over him. He scrambled processors finally supplied the name of the mech that filled his optics and he began to laugh brokenly.

"What's so funny?" the mech demanded.

"How ironic" Megatron wheezed "that death should come for me in the guise of a dead Autobot."

A startled expression crossed Jazz's face and he did quick scan of the Decepticon warlord, as the results scrolled across his optics he cursed silently. Megatron was right unless he got medical attention soon he was headed to Primus for judgement; Jazz struggled to decide on the best course of action for several long moments and as he did so Megatron slipped into stasis lock. Deciding on his plan Jazz transformed and raced out, headed for the ongoing mêlée, hunting for one particular decepticon.

_----_

It was not, Hook reflected as he found himself disarmed and trapped on his back under a black and white mech, shaping up to be a good fight. On the other hand having secured his captive Jazz didn't seem to have any inclination to terminate him, instead he leaned in close, very close his lips coming level with Hook's audios.

"Struggle just enough to make it look real and listen," Jazz hissed "you want to spend the rest of your days following Screamer?"

"No!" Hook growled, twisting and bucking trying to throw the saboteur off.

"Didn't think so," Jazz twisted and rolled so that Hook was on top "Megatron's in need of medical attention right now or else Screamers gonna be top mech. I'll show you where he is but make the chase look real."

Without another word Jazz twisted, contorting himself in an optic watering way and Hook found himself back on his feet with the black and white half way through transforming, he followed suit and the pair charged across the desert away from the battle tossing insults and weapons fire as they went.

_----_

Megatron became aware of his surroundings slowly; two indistinct shapes hovered in his optics and slowly became clearer.

"He's stabilised," Hook said to the other mech "You can disconnect the transfusion lines."

The smaller mech began shutting valves and pulling out the lines that connected the two of them, a shock of recognition passed over the warlord's CPU.

"How? Why?" Megatron's vocaliser shorted and buzzed.

Jazz looked up and replied "Because I owed you a debt of honour. You didn't take advantage of so many of 'em chasing after my aft. As for how," a broad grin split his face "never trust all you see on the television."

His radio chirped and Prime's voice sounded over the open channel "Autobot's begin damage limitation activities at your current positions and then regroup."

"Fight's over," Jazz muttered, then stood abruptly "I'll keep 'em away from here for a couple of joors but you'd better be gone when I get back or you'll be seeing how comfy the Ark's brig is."

Megatron nodded and Jazz turned way, transformed and rolled out with out another word.

"Um, that whole thing was kinda odd." Hook commented, staring after the disappearing Porsche.

Megatron smiled and replied "Honour debts rarely make sense."

Hook started at his leader in confusion for several minutes before shrugging and helping the warlord to his feet.

_---- The Ark common room, next day ---_

The place was noisy, full of life and happy mechs celebrating another victory and one gained with no serious injuries. Jazz sat on the floor, huddled round a cube of high grade in a forgotten corner was in no mood to celebrate, the journey back to earth aboard Omega had been difficult, Prowl had spent the time hiding from everyone in the storage hold and he'd spent the time sitting beside his coffin on the observation deck, once the others had found out what the box was they tended to find conversation in its presence rather difficult which at the time had suited him just fine. Prowl not spoken to him outside of their official roles for the past three months, and those meeting had been cold and formal, lacking any of the easy comradeship they had had before. Outside of their office hours the tactician had been actively avoiding him, going so far as to stop a conversation in mid sentence and walk out of the room when he entered, and now to top it all he had, yesterday, committed an act that could only be described as treason. If Prowl ever found out he'd helped Megatron escape, a shudder rippled through his struts at the dark thoughts of what Prowl would do to him. True he'd had no choice, he had owed the 'con leader a debt of honour, and where possible Jazz paid his debts but he doubted that Prowl would see it like that.

Jazz noticed that a pool of silence was spreading round him, and then saw the feet and legs of his fellow black and white standing in front of him, looking up he found the stern, cold face of the Autobot second in command glaring down at him.

"Um, hi." Jazz ventured weakly.

Prowl raised an optic ridge and then in a tone as cold as liquid hydrogen snapped "My office, now."

Prowl was halfway across the room before Jazz managed to drag himself to his feet and start after him, a host of sympathetic looks and a round of supportive hands on his shoulders and arms followed him out of the room.

The corridors of the Ark seemed endless and threatening as Jazz slowly walked towards Prowl's office, the hiss of the air conditioning sounded like the screaming of the mob at a public execution and a fuel freezing cold settled in his tanks. By the time Jazz stood, trembling, outside Prowl's office his mind was almost in overload with fear and worry, was Prowl about to finish what he'd started on the Sanctuary? Would Prowl beat him to death this time, in private and with no on to hear him scream? Did he know about the incident with Megatron yesterday? What would he do about it if he did? Snatching at the tatters of his courage Jazz walked towards the door which slid silently open to reveal the inside of Prowls office. Jazz baulked on the threshold, the office was pitch black with no sign of Prowl or anyone else, he slowly edged forward into the office every sense at full stretch, expecting an attack form any quarter at any time. His optics where suddenly overwhelmed by a flood of harsh light and he stopped moving instinctively dropping into a ball on the floor body tensed for a blow that never came, instead there was a gentle click and then the sound of a human voice singing.

"_So let mercy come  
And wash away  
What I've done"  
_

Jazz uncurled and stared into the darkness as the song continued, was it possible that this was Prowl's way of saying he was finally forgiven? The feel of a pair of hands resting lightly on his shoulders had Jazz spinning round to find himself optic to optic with the tactician.

"I'm sorry." Prowl said softly.

Jazz felt his mind go into free fall. Prowl was apologising to him, after all that he had put Prowl through, all the emotional and physical pain and stress that he'd inflicted on the tactician, Prowl was apologising to him. The small part of Jazz processor that was still functioning pointed out that this could be his one opportunity to reconcile himself to Prowl and since he'd been mourning the state of their relationship just a few minutes previously he'd better not slag it up.

Prowl watched apprehensively as Jazz stared at him in utter confusion, he'd treated the saboteur very badly for the last three months and he'd recently found himself longing to reclaim the easy, warm friendship they'd shared before. He wasn't sure if Jazz could find it in him to forgive the treatment he'd received, Prowl shuddered at the memory of the beating he'd inflicted on Jazz in the Sanctuary's storage bay. He slowly removed his hands from Jazz's shoulders and sat back on his heels to give Jazz space to think in, he saw the first tear start its trek down Jazz's face and instinctively reached out to wipe it away. It was the action that broke the dam, Prowl found himself wrapped in the embrace of a weeping saboteur, there were words buried incoherently under the tears but Prowl had stopped listening. He held Jazz close and felt tensions he hadn't know he still carried melt away at the feel of his lover's closeness, there would still be cracks between them, no one went through the ordeal that they had suffered with out it leaving marks but they had taken the first step towards mutual absolution and that was all that mattered right now. Gathering Jazz more closely into his arms he settled back against his desk and listened to the song still softly echoing in the dark of his office.

_For what I've done  
I start again  
And whatever pain may come  
Today this ends  
I'm forgiving what I've done!  
_

Finis

To all you wonderful people who've read, reviewed and commented on this story, thank you, thank you, thank you. You've made some really bad months of my life brighter and hopefully improved my writing style. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

PS of course you all recognised the lyrics as being from What I've done by Linkin Park from the 2007 Movie.


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